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THE LATE 


SIR ROBERT PEEL, 

j * 

BART. V A t 


BY 

GEORGE HENRY FRANCIS. 

p » 


REPRINTED, WITH ADDITIONS, FROM 

Fraser’s Magazine. 



JOHN W. PARKER AND SON, WEST STRAND. 


MDCCCUI, 






DA53^ 

,P3 F* 


LONDON : 

SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CI1ANDOS STREET, 
COVENT GARDEN. 


THE LATE 


SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


i. 

I S it possible to write an impartial biography of 
a political contemporary ? ‘ No/ would be the 

instant answer, if a prevailing impression were 
accepted without thought. 

Yet that impression encourages much injustice 
to the character of the living, and to the memory 
of the dead ; while the nation often suffers incalcu¬ 
lably in its dearest interests. Obviously, it is of 
great importance that the people of a country 
should form a correct estimate of those public men 
whose ideas and actions more or less regulate their 
own, affecting closely their mental and material 
life. Yet, because impartial men shrink from the 
avowedly hopeless task of doing justice, the reputa¬ 
tion of such men falls into the hands of partizans; 
by whom the fair proportions of their character are 
distorted, either in exaggerated good will or morbid 
malice ; until even their power of serving their 
fellow-men becomes destroyed or impaired. All 
their actions are judged by the false standard of 
political passions or prejudices; and, although the 
medium may be ephemeral, the effect is so far per¬ 
manent, that impressions are stamped on the public 

A 2 


4 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


mind, of which the traces remain until at last (but 
often too late,) history comes to render justice. 

Admit that the difficulty is great, and still the 
stake is worth trying for; partly in love for the 
truth, partly for the good to be wrought for man¬ 
kind by spreading sound views of the actions and 
motives of great men, and so making more easy the 
task of those who may come after. 

With these objects the following ‘ critical' bio¬ 
graphy of the late Sir Robert Peel has been 
attempted. ‘ Biography' is usually made a mere 
string of facts and dates, in place of being a history 
of the mind and character of the man examined. 
Here, all the actions of the deceased statesman will 
be judged by the light of contemporaneous circum¬ 
stances, and his motives read with the commentary 
he from time to time offered. In this biography, 
therefore, an effort will be made to look through 
the actions to the springs of those actions; to test 
motives; to watch the gradual development of the 
mind ; and to account naturally and logically 
for many public acts which have been attributed to 
profound dissimulation, inconsistency, or, more fatal 
charge, to .treachery. 

The sudden fate of Sir Robert Peel evoked a 
world-wide sorrow. Tributes to his memory, not 
alone from those who were bound to know him, 
but from those who only contemplated him from 
afar, spoke the language, not of formal eulogy, but 
of deep-settled admiration. If grief for his loss, 
and homage to his talents and services, constitute 
proofs that his character was appreciated, it may 
be affirmed that his contemporaries acknowledged 
in him a great man. There were many among 
us who best knew his real worth, and have not been 
slow in testifying to it; they are of the chief 


UNIVERSALITY OF HIS FAME. 


5 


arbiters to whom history will refer. Yet a stronger 
evidence, however, will be drawn from the brilliant 
reflexion of his fame in the spontaneous tribute of 
foreign nations, and still more from the vague 
instinct of hero-worship, and the more intelligible 
impulse of gratitude, manifested by the masses in 
our own country, judging, as they do, from results 
alone, and uncultivated as they are in the arts of 
statesmanship, or the tests by which political great¬ 
ness is determined. 

The British people are never slow to do justice 
to their distinguished men. In life they canvass 
their character, and often act upon temporary sug¬ 
gestions of party feeling or general prejudice, but 
in death they never fail to do honour to their 
talents and justice to their motives. The late Sir 
Robert Peel stood in a position so peculiar as to 
mark with more than ordinary significance the 
alacrity with which a consentaneous judgment has 
been pronounced in his favour—a judgment cha¬ 
racterized by calmness and the superficial evidences 
of permanency. The more captivating traits of the 
orator, the patriot, the statesman of the brilliant 
rather than of the solid order, appeal to the 
imagination with the more irresistible force when 
death has removed all detracting or qualifying 
influences. A halo surrounds such men, which may 
easily be mistaken for one of permanent glory. To 
the honour of the English, however, it is seldom 
that their instincts deceive them in their estimates 
of the dead. Yet had they done so in the case of 
the late Sir Robert Peel, they might almost have 
been forgiven. His was not a career, his were not 
the qualities, to appeal to the imagination or to 
lead captive the judgment. He did not fall into 
his grave followed by the fealty of a party, bound 
almost in honour to attest his worth, if not to magnify 


6 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


it. He could not point to a long course of consistent 
championship, in the political adversity of continued 
opposition, of principles at last forced on the legis¬ 
lature by a disinterested perseverance. He could 
not refer to plans of reform and enlightened conces¬ 
sion, prepared and urged in early youth, but aban¬ 
doned in later life in obedience to a national necessity. 
He could not, like the younger Pitt, unite to the 
gratitude of a whole nation, saved by his energy and 
will from foreign invaders, the unwilling admission 
of his political foes, that but for the overwhelming 
necessity of a national peril he would have antici¬ 
pated religious, political, and commercial reform, 
by nearly half a century. Still less was his repu¬ 
tation embellished by the fascinations of brilliant 
eloquence or romantic statesmanship. He had 
never stood forth before the world as the patriot 
champion of the grievances of oppressed nationali¬ 
ties, nor had he prejudiced the judgment of pos¬ 
terity by aspirations after an impracticable freedom 
and perfectibility; nor had he, even for an hour, 
in the whole course of his long career, sacrificed 
the grave duties of the statesman to the tempta¬ 
tions which assail the orator. If ever the judg¬ 
ment of a nation—nay, of a world—was deter¬ 
mined by solid realities rather than by specious 
shows, by deeds and not by professions, by an 
instinctive conviction of moral worth, and not by 
a forced assent to self-avowed pretensions, it is the 
universal verdict that has been given in favour of 
the late Sir Robert Peel. 

Yet, withal, was that eminent man understood ? 
The dull instinct of hero-worship, stirred by the 
notoriety of a name, the great facts of a long life, 
and its sad and ignoble end ; or a better understood 
sentiment of gratitude, adopted by the multitude 
at the suggestion of interested partizans of a par- 


WAS HE UNDERSTOOD? 


7 


ticular policy; or tlie higher appreciation of higher 
minds long conversant with the dead statesman's 
public and private probity, his singular merits as 
an administrative officer, his unparalleled per¬ 
suasiveness as a speaker, and his intuitive aptitude 
as a party tactician; or the quasi-philosophical 
attempts of journalists and publicists to assume 
the dignified mien and mission of history, while 
recording their qualified eulogies, fettered by the 
remembrance of former virulence or adulation ; all 
these may have contributed individual portions to 
an enlarged estimate of the character and peculiar 
claims of the deceased ; but is there on record any 
one comprehensive and expansive analysis? Uni¬ 
versal sorrow would attend the death, especially 
such a death, of one who had occupied a large space 
in the public eye. Simultaneous meetings of all 
classes, from the highest to the lowest, to record 
respect, might be only a national mode of express¬ 
ing a sense that a void exists by the removal of the 
most prominent and eminent man of his age. The 
offer of a coronet from the Crown, and of a public 
funeral by Parliament; the awarding of a monu¬ 
ment in the temple of dead heroes ; the contribu¬ 
tion of the working-men's pence to a still more 
honourable record elsewhere ; these are all outward 
signs and symptoms of a nation's sense that it has 
suffered a great loss. But abstract regret at an 
appalling calamity, mere vague worship of a name, 
democratic feeling unconsciously taking the shape 
of the poor man's gratitude, exaggerated estimates 
dictated by friendship and increased by the near¬ 
ness of the object, or professional tributes inspired 
by the necessity of eulogy, and sharpened in the 
haste of composition ; all might pour, as they have 
poured, their incense on the grave of the dead, and 


8 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


yet the world at large might, individually and 
collectively, possess but a vague and imperfect 
knowledge of all the claims he had on their respect 
and veneration, or might still more readily overlook 
those points in his character which went to over¬ 
shadow its moral beauty. 

There may be, probably there will be, a reaction, 
at all events an attempt at one. So wide-spread 
and so unqualified an admiration is almost too much 
glory for any one man. Public and private virtue 
have been alike accorded to the deceased in a pre¬ 
eminent degree. Such an accumulation of eulogy 
on one whose lot it was to be reviled and lauded 
with a striking inconsistency by his countrymen, 
will be suspected by history, jealous of the fame of 
her elder political heroes, and fearful that an age 
which is not emphatically and without dispute ‘ a 
great age/ has not in him produced ‘a great man/ 
The truth of an assumption by a publicist,* whose 
slightest word enters into the elements of public 
opinion, may fairly be doubted. Posterity, in form¬ 
ing its judgment, cannot ignore striking and singu¬ 
lar traits in the public life of Sir Robert Peel. His 
portrait cannot be painted in one point of view. 
His character cannct be dashed off with the broad 
lines and brilliant colours of eulogy, or the lumi¬ 
nous purity of his motives contrasted with deep 
Rembrandt shadows of suspicion or condemnation. 
He was many-sided, a political philosopher, not so 
much in distillations of wisdom, or in concrete 
policy, as in impressibility. Other men were im¬ 
pressible by prejudice, passion, interests ; he could 
only be moved by tangible realities, by facts. To 
study him, you must study the time in which he 


* An eloquent writer in the Times. 



WAS HE A GREAT MAN? 


9 


lived ; which acted upon him, but which was still 
more reacted upon. A superficial judgment, for or 
against, will not satisfy posterity ; nor will a pre¬ 
tended impartiality—a mere balancing. 

It was the singular fate of the late Sir Robert 

O 

Peel to have been at war, during the greater part 
of his life, with all parties and principles in alter¬ 
nation. He exhausted alike the hatred of his 
friends and the eidogy of his foes. He convicted 
all his contemporaries of blindness, insincerity, or 
inconsistency. Himself charged with inconsistency, 
he still more signally caused the inconsistency of 
others. There was not a public man, or a public 
writer, whom he did not compel to think and say 
of him at one time the absolute reverse of what he 
had said at another. Tories, Whigs, Radicals, 
Churchmen, and Dissenters, idolaters of Protection, 
and fanatics of Free Trade, all were alike wrong in 
their conception of this many-phased character. 
Each was in turn wrecked by trusting to only one 
aspect of this political revolving light. In his 
earlier life, as a chief, Sir Robert Peel was mis¬ 
trusted by those whom he led ; in his later career, 
he led those whom he had never trusted. The 
early hatred of the latter was indeed compensated 
for by their tardy but servile admiration ; but the 
hatred—perhaps the well-founded hatred—of the 
former, survived his after-greatness, and rejoiced 
over his political downfall, although, in obedience 
to the magnanimous instincts of the national charac¬ 
ter, they offered a tempered tribute of regret at his 
decease. Remembering these things, and that the 
vitality of such passions is not easily destroyed, and 
that political gratitude is short-lived, it may fairly 
be doubted whether reaction will not show itself; 
whether the question of motives and consistency 


10 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


may not be still a f vexed ’ one ; whether the una¬ 
nimity of the tribute that has followed his death is 
not suspicious ; and whether, therefore, it is not 
desirable to have some more solid basis for the 
judgment of mankind, than one which may be said 
to have in a great measure resulted from surprise. 
Fate and death, in inflicting a cruel blow on the 
mortal, served the immortal part of the deceased 
statesman. The sentiment of sorrow has helped to 
the conviction of greatness, and the two have sunk 
deep in the world's mind. So far it is well. The 
late Sir Robert Peel was undoubtedly a great man; 
but the conditions of his greatness were not those 
to which the world has been accustomed. They 
require to be contemplated in their aggregate, and 
from a distance ; in the spirit of philosophical ana¬ 
lysis, not under the influence of feeling. Your 
retrospect must carry you further back than the 
custom of the hour requires: you must search for 
motives much deeper than the necessities of position 
or the ambition of fame. 


H ISTORY, in drawing the portrait of Sir Robert 
. Peel, will be distracted by the conflicting mate¬ 
rials. She will find her boasted impartiality indeed 
‘a weak-built isthmus * 'twixt two seas, of calumny 
and eulogy. No ordinary art, no showily super ¬ 
ficial estimate, will suffice. She will have to aban¬ 
don her parallels and her tricks of rhetoric, her 
ascriptions--of motives, and her inferences of the 
influence of the more vulgar sources of ambition. 
Walpole, Pulteney, Pitt, Canning, neither will serve 
her turn. She will have to deal with a man to 
whom the possession of power, as power, was no 
temptation; who could not be allured from his 


HIS PORTRAIT, BY AN ULTRA-TORY. ] 1 

duty, and who would not be rewarded for it by the 
splendours of a peerage ;—a man who, with a spirit 
not less romantic, and a patriotism not less intense, 
than those of Pitt or Canning, disdained to achieve 
his triumphs by any influences in which the whole 
people, from the most exalted to the meanest, 
could not participate. She will have to build up 
her monument to his fame out of materials humbly 
and laboriously selected by herself; for she will 
find the hasty structures, left alike by the friends 
and the enemies of the deceased statesman, worse 
than useless for her purpose. 

If she reads the portrait of Sir Robert Peel, as 
drawn by the consistent upholder of that old order 
of things which Sir Robert Peel lived to modify, if 
not to destroy, she will find it sketched by pens 
tipped with adamant and steeped in gall. Some¬ 
thing such as this might be the view of 

A ‘TORY’ PAINTING THE CHARACTER OF PEEL. 

Sir Robert Peel teas a traitor of a peculiar and almost 
unfathomable depth. lie was born an antagonist of the 
aristocracy, and entered their ranks only to destroy them. 
During seventeen years, he practised from year to year, from 
night to night, an almost fiendish dissimulation, gradually 
winning the confidence and acquiring the suffrages of those 
whom he had determined to destroy. Superadding to 
this grander and more public wickedness, the pettier vice 
of private and more personal treachery, he conceived and 
maintained for years a secret enmity towards a statesman 
of whose brilliant oratorical powers he was jealous, and 
whose future supremacy in the councils of the nation he 
feared would be fatal to his own ambition. To destroy 
this rival, he conspired with six other cabinet ministers, 

•—at their head the most illustrious man the age had pro¬ 
duced,—to paralyse the action of the newly-appointed 
minister, and, by wounding him through his love of fame, 
to strike his death-blow, not merely in a political, but 
also in a mortal and physical sense. Having compassed 
this political and moral crime, he went on to accumulate 


12 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


infamy by suddenly reaping the harvest which his stricken 
rival had helped to sow, robbing him, by one act of 
treachery to party and principle, of fame as well as of 
life. Discarded by his political associates, anathematized 
by the Church, and devoted by all upright men to the 
Nemesis of history, this then unprecedented political 
traitor commenced, with a diabolical dissimulation, to lay 
the foundation of a new treason. By seeming self-humi¬ 
liation, by championship of still remaining institutions 
and principles, by foremost resistance to the machinery 
devised by the rival party to secure a permanent hold 
on the government, he was once more placed at the head 
of his party, not because they trusted him, for faith "was 
for ever gone, but because his political and parliamentary 
talents rendered him necessary. Thus, once more accre¬ 
dited, he used his credentials to commit his party to a 
suicidal acquiescence in the new policy of Reform. Under 
tlie guise of an endeavour to render them back under the 
new system, the influence they, from time immemorial, 
had held under the old, he was preparing himself, his 
party, and the country, for another exhibition of treachery 
still worse than the first. He had entered public life as 
the avowed champion of the Church and the Land, The 
former he had sapped, if not destroyed; the turn of the 
latter was now come. By a consistent game of seeming 
ardour for protection to agriculture, he got himself re¬ 
turned to parliament, the chief of a landlords’ majority of 
near a hundred. Now was come the time to consummate 
the long-planned treachery of more than thirty years. 
The manufacturer’s son was now to raise up his order 
by finally destroying the aristocracy. The traitor carried 
out his purpose with unblushing effrontery in the face 
of mankind. As in the first case, he leagued with his 
political foes for the destruction of his friends ; and when 
the sacrifice was accomplished, and he could glory in thus 
having put the climax to his public life, he w r as igno- 
miniously driven from office, pursued in his involuntary 
retirement by the indignation or contempt of mankind. 
These would be found amongst his political offences, ac¬ 
cording to the impassioned asseverations of some of his 
quondam supporters. But the list is not quite exhausted. 
There remains a charge of a still baser nature, not touch¬ 
ing directly on politics, but yet supposed to be connected 
with the grand design against the landed interest. About 
thirty years before his death, Sir Robert Peel professed 


HIS PORTRAIT, BY AN ULTRA-TORY. 


io 


to have become convinced that the time had arrived for 
a restoration of the currency of the country to its old 
basis prior to the last long war. Under cover of a desire 
to restore public confidence in the currency, and to re¬ 
establish the credit of the country on a basis of integrity, 
he accomplished a gigantic manoeuvre, by which he nearly 
doubled in value the property which was to descend to 
him in the ordinary course of inheritance. This he did in 
defiance of all principles of justice, which required that 
for the sake of the landed interest the mortgages which 
had been contracted in a paper currency should be paid in 
a paper currency also; that a principle, essentially false 
and prospectively ruinous, should be persevered in, in 
order to protect the interests of those who had not exer¬ 
cised sufficient foresight to protect themselves; and that, 
contrary to all accepted maxims of political morality, the 
permanent interests of the many, and the maintenance of 
a sound system of currency in a country growing yearly 
more and more commercial, should be sacrificed to the 
interests or the improvidence of a class. This crowning 
baseness of the deceased statesman was the especial 
abhorrence of one particular school of economists, re¬ 
markable for counting in its ranks men of the most 
opposite political principles ; a peculiarity which may mis¬ 
lead the future historian into the belief that, however the 
foregoing charges may have been attributable to con¬ 
temporary party feeling, this one, at least, was founded 
in truth. But the black side of this picture is not yet 
filled up. An anomaly, the most remarkable of all, will 
still present itself to the analysis of Sir Robert Peel’s 
career. Pursuing the parliamentary history of more than 
five-and-thirty years, from very soon after the commence¬ 
ment of this century, he will find indubitable proofs that 
Sir Robert Peel, even in his youth, but still more in his 
advanced years, wielded over the House of Commons, 
and through them over the public, an unparalleled influ¬ 
ence. He will find that, in an era brilliant with parlia¬ 
mentary talent, Sir Robert Peel not only kept a position 
as a debater corresponding with that which he held as a 
minister, but that, by the concurrent testimony of friends 
and foes, he was the most accomplished manager of the 
sympathies of the House of Commons of any hitherto 
recorded. He will suppose that some such pre-eminence 
must have been enjoyed by a man who could, even at tLe 
earliest accredited age of manhood, impress his contempo- 


14 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

raries with a sense of his power, and w r ho, towards the 
close of his public life, became almost a dictator of parlia¬ 
mentary opinion. If, however, as it may be inferred he 
would, he consulted the parliamentary proceedings for 
authorities on this subject, he would find from the records 
of the years 1845 and 1846, that all this opinion of the 
eloquence and influence of Sir Robert Peel was erroneous, 
for that the House affirmed, by the most vociferous 
applause, a series of propositions, deliberately offered, and 
elaborately worked out, to the effect that Sir Robert Peel 
was nothing more nor less than an impostor and a char¬ 
latan, whose intellectual and oratorical merits were upon 
a par with his political turpitude. 

If the reader thinks the foregoing retrospect of 
the mad animosity of party is overcharged, let him, 
ere he judges, refer to the writings and spoken 
words of journalists and orators, Tory, Whig, and 
Radical; and for the last part, to the records of 
the unseemly and almost savage exultation of the 
House of Commons in witnessing the assaults on 
their time-honoured idol by Disraeli. 

Turn now to other pictures of the same man, 
painted in colours quite as strong, and perhaps, 
more durable; and in which the hearty sincerity of 
the various artists is quite as apparent. Let us yield 
the essence of his eulogy in later years from ancient 
enemies, as we have already condensed the censure 
of his quondam friends. We may thus suppose 

a ‘ liberal’ painting the character of peel. 

In doing justice to Sir Robert Peel as he at last became, 
one cannot forget what he had been. It would be to 
hold up a bad example not to show that such a career 
as he ran can be the lot of but one man in an era. 
Sir Robert Peel was not untainted by the errors of the 
past, however illustrious he has become in the well- 
earned honours already awarded him by his country. The 
eldest son and heir of one who, having sprung from the 
people, had founded a dynasty of manufacturing mag¬ 
nates, Sir Robert Peel was destined, in the strange muta¬ 
tions of modern politics, to be the leader of that landed 


HIS PORTRAIT, BY A LIBERAL. 


15 


aristocracy, to wliom liis family and tlie interests connected 
with, them were the natural antagonists, and ultimately to 
lead a large portion of that aristocracy by conviction to 
perform an act of justice towards those interests; an act 
which, however, was at the same time necessary to their own 
salvation. Influenced in his career by the proud ambition 
of his father that his son should be the Prime Minister of 
England, he was scarcely of legal age when he was return¬ 
ed to parliament, having personally distinguished himself 
at the university, and established his character as a young 
man of brilliant promise. He had not been a year in par¬ 
liament when he received from the government of the day 
the unusual honour of an appointment to the Under-se¬ 
cretaryship of State for the Home Department. In two 
years afterwards he was made a Privy Councillor, and ap¬ 
pointed to the still more responsible office of Chief Se¬ 
cretary of Ireland. At this time he was only twenty-four 
years of age, and although he had not then established a 
very high character as an orator, still his official life was the 
more remarkable from the extraordinary prudence, sagacity, 
and knowledge of the world displayed by so young a man. 
Put his position was an anomaly. Sprung from the people 
—himself one of the aristocracy of labour—he ought to 
have been arrayed on the popular side. The then leaders 
of the people had more zeal and perseverance than talent 
or dignity. Had the manufacturer’s son—he who had dis¬ 
tanced all the young scions of aristocracy on their own self- 
made ground, by bearing off, against all competitors, the 
highest university honours,—had he then placed himself 
in the van of ‘ progress ’—had he been the herald of those 
great principles of improvement, those recognitions of in- 
defeasable social rights, which he so tardily adopted in his 
later years—what a magnanimous resolve it would have 
been, what a glorious career would have been before him ! 
But he was fated to do otherwise. He was to achieve the 
same glorious results, but by more tortuous means. He 
was first to serve, then to lead, and then, by seeming to 
ruin, to save the aristocracy. Twice in his life he opposed 
himself, in proud humility, to his party. By carrying 
emancipation, he saved the country from convulsions. He 
had previously been formally absolved by Mr. Canning 
from the charge of conspiring to procure his downfall. 
His next great act was to induce his party to accept the 
Reform-bill as a fait accompli, by which they rendered 
themselves so popular, that in the year 1840 they were 


16 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


restored to political power. But a still greater trial awaited 
the statesman. • 

Long before he came into office in 1841 he had deter¬ 
mined upon leading the ultras of his party into more 
healthy relations with public opinion. Double-dealing is 
unhappily a necessary part of statesmanship ; and double¬ 
dealing Sir Robert Peel undoubtedly practised whilst 
leader of the Conservative opposition. By the most artful 
management of his declarations—by dealing in dubious 
negatives, and parading pompous nothings ; by obstructing 
rather than assaulting, and winning his triumphs rather by 
letting his enemy overshoot his mark than by overreaching 
him, he contrived to let his party believe that he was the 
warm and zealous champion of a reactionary policy, at a 
time when, if everything he had said was sifted, he would be 
found to stand unpledged to a single principle or measure. 
This crooked wisdom is very hateful, but it is not always 
the individual who must be blamed; party was still strong ; 
it was only by party that Sir Robert Peel could ever hope 
to rule. Had he not given up a little to party, he would 
never have been able to develope that which was intended 
for mankind. At length the turning point came. The 
Whigs had exhausted popular favour, had wearied and 
disgusted their friends, whilst they had frightened yet 
encouraged their enemies. Sir Robert Peel arose and 
pushed them from their seats. He took the helm. He 
stood before the country as the responsible inheritor of 
their former popularity. He knew well that he was not 
brought in there by his party alone, but that the people 
looked to him for those substantial benefits which, with 
the best intentions, the Whigs had been unable to give 
them. Of course the whole affair had been an enormous poli¬ 
tical fraud. Of course, it was the Conservative opposition, 
with Sir Robert Peel at their head, that had paralyzed the 
Whigs, and hindered them from carrying those measures 
which he was now about to propose. But such proceedings 
are too common in politics. The sense of right and wrong 
is lost in the struggle for power. The only atonement is 
when that power, once obtained, is used for the public good. 
Jn Sir Robert Peel’s case, he certainly did make atone¬ 
ment. Prom the year 1841 he exhibited a wonderful 
series of developments. His ver}^ first act, in coming into 
power, was to shake off party. The public, the nation, 
were, from that hour, his party. He became a demagogue, 
speaking by acts of parliament, One by one he broke the 


HIS PORTRAIT BY A LIBERAL. 


17 


fetters which bound trade and commerce, and be aimed 
heavy blows and great discouragements to bigotry and 
exclusiveness in every shape. Yet there was a plain funda¬ 
mental solidity in all his plans, that charmed away alarm, 
and made them as much approved by rational Conserva¬ 
tives as they were by the expectant people. By a long 
course of able oratory, by an extraordinary analysis and 
study of the elements of the representative system, he had 
obtained an absolute mastery over the sympathies of the 
House of Commons. It was astonishing what a moral ele¬ 
vation he now achieved. He was no longer the plausible 
chameleon-like politician. He had been a while serving, 
that he might afterwards rule. He spoke out with a bold¬ 
ness that sometimes almost degenerated into arrogance. 
He seemed to say, ‘ I am the State.’ Virulently assailed 
by the more upright members of his own party, he turned 
round upon them and defied them, saying, ‘ I will do my 
duty to the nation ; support me or not, as you please. I 
do not wish to be minister: I will resign if you do not 
support my measures.’ 

At many periods in his long political life this manly 
spirit had flashed out. But it always then seemed as if 
he wished to check it. How, however, he rather gloried 
in it. It produced an impression such as had not been felt 
in the House of Commons since the days of William Pitt. 
Por some time during his career, more especially after the 
introduction of the Corn-law Repeal Bill, he was the absolute 
dictator of the House of Commons. Let us still follow 
out the imaginary defence. People were taught to believe 
that Sir Robert Peel was a model of slipperiness and in¬ 
sincerity—that his chief characteristics were sham candour, 
plausibility, sophistry, and weakness of purpose. In short, 
he was held up to ridicule, too long, as a kind of political 
chameleon—one who had no fixed character of his own, 
but took the hues of his politics from those around him. 
That man was all along mistaken. His lot was cast in 
difficult times—fortune at first forced him to breast the 
current. He worked all along against his own nature, his 
own sympathies—all which leaned towards confidence in 
the people. Had he violently changed his side earlier in 
life, such was the state of public affairs, that he would have 
utterly wrecked himself as a politician. Those whom he 
had led to victory through compromise, never heartily 
loved or trusted him ; yet after his last great sacrifice for 

B 


18 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


public tranquillity, in their family circles, too many of the 
highest and noblest amongst them never spoke of him by 
name, but only as £ The Traitor.’ The fault was theirs. 
He could not throw off his hateful cloak of dissimulation 
till he was strong enough to brave their rage. He then 
paid off old scores. ‘ The whirligig of time brought round 
his revenges.’ And not the least claim he had upon the 
public gratitude was, that both by argument and example 
he infused his own liberal views into a large and enlightened 
portion of the aristocracy, who became identified with 
him in honest convictions. And now tqydeal with the latest 
and least defensible attacks on Sir Robert Peel, those 
which enabled Mr. Disraeli to rise to so high a rank. 

Those whose minds are possessed with the old ideas of 
Sir Robert Peel, will be surprised to find how much dig¬ 
nity there was in his bearing—how much moral courage— 
what a commanding presence—what a fine intellectual 
countenance—what a noble carriage. That voice, so full 
of harmony, which was said only to be used to gloze and 
to ensnare, they would have found full of deep-toned em¬ 
phasis, of nervous vigour,—fit organ of bold resolves and 
magnanimous purposes. They might think the action of 
the speaker redundant, familiar, even ungraceful, but they % 
would see in it an unguarded, untutored impulse of an 
earnest resolute man, not the stilted grace and measured 
pomposity of a trained orator. If they found fault with 
his speeches—as who would not P—for their extraordinary 
verboseness, the constant repetitions they abound in, and# 
the absence, except at rare intervals, and on occasions of 
stirring personal interest, of those brilliant passages wdiich 
are the pride of the rhetorician ; on the other hand, they 
would not fail to observe that this statesman, of more than 
forty years'* active life, had raised himself to the proud 
height of being the teacher of the nation—that we should 
admire, rather than criticise, that laborious sense of duty, 
which induces a man, who would rather deal with the 
essence of things, to encumber himself with the flat and 
weary details of minute affairs. They would not, in jus¬ 
tice, forget that a speech of Sir Robert Peel, expounding 
the principles of any great measure, was, as it were, the 
spelling-book and grammar of the people on that subject. 
Sir Robert Peel did more to popularize useful political 
knowledge than any statesman of the day. 

At last, then (we still pursue the line of the later eulo¬ 
gists), Sir Robert Peel righted himself. He entered boldly 


HIS PORTRAIT BY A LIBERAL. 


19 


on that course from which he was warped in youth by 
early prepossessions and parental guidance. He was a 
man for the people. He saved the aristocracy from col¬ 
lision with the other powers of the state, by partly forcing 
them, partly persuading them, to render a tardy justice. 
He identified himself with the middle classes and the in¬ 
dustrious classes generally. He saw that legislation must 
be expanded to the compass of their wants. It was not 
his high honour to give those classes extended political 
power. But he did more than any living statesman to 
render that gift a fact, not a mere parchment. Cold, re¬ 
served, isolated, haughty in his bearing towards the aris¬ 
tocracy, to the people he spoke as a friend. He took a 
pride in making acknowledgment that he had sprung from 
their ranks. He lost no opportunity of exalting them in 
the social and political scale. He aimed at the extension 
of their material comforts. The tendency of all his mea¬ 
sures, from 1841 to 1846, was to improve their condition. 
The more Sir Robert Peel is known, the more the false 
colours in which party-spirit has painted him will become 
obliterated, the more will he be found to have assimilated 
with the character of his countrymen. Of him it may with 
truth be said, that his errors were forced on him by an 
irresistible fate, but his merits and virtues were all his 
own. He was essentially Eng fish in his character. Charged 
by superficial observers with coldness, he was a man of the 
warmest feelings. In his private life he was always a pat¬ 
tern to his contemporaries. In his domestic relations, 
especially, lie was all that the English people love. 

Perhaps, in the foregoing summaries, a resem¬ 
blance may be traced to the views entertained of 
the deceased statesman by prejudiced antagonists,— 
it may be, by equally prejudiced friends. If he 
was such an enigma to those among whom he lived 
and acted, the task of the historian must, a fortiori , 
be more difficult still. In fact, a solution can only 
be arrived at by merging the individual in the time 
in which he lived, and regarding him as an exponent, 
an administrator of the wants and the will of his 
countrymen. His greatness, in fact, consists in his 
having faithfully reflected the age in which he lived. 

B 2 


20 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


III. 

mHE predestinarian might find in the origin of 
X Sir Robert Peel, taken in connexion with 
his career when in his full growth as a statesman, 
a confirmation of his theory. The historian and 
political philosopher might detect therein the 
action of a retributive justice. The son of a ma¬ 
nufacturer, of one who had raised himself, if not 
from a lowly origin, at least from an humble sta¬ 
tion, to wealth, power, social influence, and alliance 
with the high and noble of the empire, Sir 
Robert Peel lived to accomplish the emancipation 
of the industrial classes from almost the sole re¬ 
maining restraint on their energies ; while, as the 
descendant of Saxon ancestors, he was instrumen¬ 
tal *in abolishing privileges which had long been 
held up to the people as odious symbols and me¬ 
morials of the domination established by the Con¬ 
quest. This is written because such ideas have 
floated in men's minds, and because foreign publi-. 
cists have chosen to take this view of the mission 
of the deceased statesman—to imagine that there 
lay a great historical myth under this coincidence 
of origin and destiny. It is, however, just to the 
memory of Sir Robert Peel to say, that there is 
not a single fact in his life, as embodied in his 
public acts and words, to countenance the supposi¬ 
tion that he even looked at his duty in so imagina¬ 
tive and visionary a light, or that his fellow-coun¬ 
trymen even regarded him in the character of a 
reactionary apostle of Saxonism. Nor was he so 
in fact, except unconsciously, and in so far as by 
helping to remove restrictions he gave to all*the 
men of the British nation, of whatever origin, 


THE PEEL FAMILY. 


21 


whether they spring from the conquerors or the 
conquered, a clear stage and no favour. 

It has been well explained by Dr. Cooke Taylor, 
that a once popular belief that the Peel family 
were of ‘ low’ origin, is a mistake ; not that the late 
Sir Robert Peel was the man to feel ashamed of 
such an imputation. He rather felt (and so pub¬ 
licly expressed himself on an occasion when Cob- 
bett, in his coarse and levelling way, had addressed 
him as c baronet and cotton spinner') that in a 
free country, it was honourable in a family to have 
raised themselves by industry to wealth and station. 
From the West Riding of Yorkshire, some of the 
Peel (then spelt Peele) family, of Saxon origin, 
went to Blackburn in Lancashire, where they were 
small farmers. ‘Peel's Fold' is still the name of 
a small estate in that neighbourhood. The grand¬ 
father of the late Sir Robert Peel lived in Fish 
Lane, in Blackburn, upon the profits of a small 
farm, and was much given to chemical and mecha¬ 
nical pursuits. The history of the family is that of 
the progress of cotton-spinning by machinery ; but 
the details, though interesting, are no necessary 
part of the present work. It is an interesting evi¬ 
dence, however, of the enormous energy that must 
have been employed by the family in building up, 
within so brief a space of time, a colossal fortune, 
that this very grandfather of whom we speak, ac¬ 
quired the name of 4 Parsley Peel,' from the first 
pattern he used in attempting calico printing 
having been a parsley leaf. This, the first experi¬ 
ment of the kind, was made in rfScresy, and in his 
own house ; the cloth, instead orbeing calendered, 
was ironed by one of the family, and the pattern 
waS a parsley leaf, scratched on a pewter platter. 
Another story differs from this, the family tradition, 


22 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


only in so far as that this germ of a great social 
revolution was formed at the house in Fish-lane, 
in Blackburn, and that the cloth was calendered 
by an old woman, a cottager hard by, named Mit- 
ton. These facts are now c familiar in our mouths 
as household words but they have their historic 
value when contrasted with the distinguished ca¬ 
reer of the grandson of this humble experimen¬ 
talist, and with the enormous fruits into which 
that germ developed. 

The proud boast made on behalf of the emperor 
Napoleon, that he threw open the road of life to 
ability, might with much more truth be referred to 
men like the father and grandfather of Sir Robert 
Peel, who worked out the same mission by an 
influence more potent than even the fiats of rulers 
—the force of example. Men of that class even 
then clearly understood their position, and foresaw 
their destiny ; nor was it a blind instinct of ambi¬ 
tion, or of paternal pride, that prompted the first 
Sir Robert Peel to the well-known belief that he 
should become the founder of a family, and that 
his eldest and favourite son would one day be Prime 
Minister of England. To know the full value of 
such a prophetic conviction, we must compare the 
difficulty and improbability of the task with the 
means taken to accomplish it. From his father it 
must have been that the deceased statesman in¬ 
herited that intensely practical temperament 
which was the main cause of his future eminence ; 
so that the same class of faculties which built up 
the new order in the state, was also engaged in 
training the youth of the man who was in after 
life so to change the laws as to adapt them to the 
growing claims of the power thus created. The 
first Sir Robert Peel started in life with the con- 


HIS EARLY LIFE. 


23 


viction that there is no position in the country too 
high to be attained by capacity, industry, and pru¬ 
dence. His distinguished son, after having exem¬ 
plified in his own person the soundness of this 
opinion, re-produced it with the stamp of his 
authority, in his celebrated address to the students 
of Glasgow University, when he said to them, 
1 Even if what is called genius shall have been de¬ 
nied to you, you have faculties of the mind, which 
may be so improved by constant exercise and vigi¬ 
lance, that they shall supply the place of genius, 
and open to you brighter prospects of ultimate 
success than genius, unaided by the same discipline, 
can hope to attain/ Exactly on this principle did 
this clear-headed and practical father train his 
child. His more tender years were passed at 
home (he was born in a little cottage near Cham¬ 
ber Hall, in the neighbourhood of Bury, the seat 
of his father's business, the family house being 
under repair at the time), where his father himself 
superintended the formation of his character, and 
gave the earty bent to his mind by precept and 
example. Of his school-life we have but one 
glimpse—that contained in the passage from By¬ 
ron's diary—but it is enough to show that on good 
capacity, perseverance, and industry, rather than 
on any extraordinary natural gifts, he relied for 
the success which, as a natural consequence, he at¬ 
tained. In the same course he held his way at 
Oxford, where he came out triumphant with double 
first class honours. All that the best training 
could do for a youth was done for him ; so that 
when at last the time came for his entrance into 
public life, he stepped forth well armed and ac¬ 
coutred ; and paternal love was the enchanter who 
thus had equipped him. 


24} THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


Some have exclaimed, ‘ Ah ! it is easy to mount 
^ to eminence, when the path is smoothed for you in 
youth. There was the young Mr. Peel, after having 
received the training of the first educational es¬ 
tablishments in the world, suddenly provided with 
a seat in parliament, and ushered into the world 
with all the advantages of social position and for¬ 
tune ! The wonder would have been if he had not 
succeeded under such auspicious circumstances/ 

This is so far true, that the young Mr. Peel was (in 
1809) returned to the House of Commons as mem¬ 
ber for the borough of Cashel in Tipperary, almost 
as soon as he had attained legal age, and that all 
this was done fo^* him by his father, and not by 
himself. But how many other young men had 
been in like manner aided at the outset of their 
career, starting* with even greater advantages of 

7 0.0 o 

birth, fortune, education, and natural powers, not 
one of whom attained distinction ! When, too, 
Mr. Peel began his parliamentary career, it was 
with no ordinary rivals. Brougham, Palmerston, 
Lord Lansdowne, and the present Earl of Ripon 
(each of whom gave promise of eminence), Can¬ 
ning, Romilly, Grattan, Mackintosh, and Francis 
Horner, were among those with whom he was to 
compete. Nor was this all. The great orators of 
the age had scarcely passed from the scene ; and 
the House of Commons had become used to an 
order of eloquence which only genius could reach. 
These were no ordinary obstacles to the rise of the 
young aspirant; but he met them with character¬ 
istic prudence, and what may almost be termed a 
calculated modesty. A man who had carried off 
the highest honours of his university could not 
have been chargeable with presumption had he at 
once essayed to make a reputation as a speaker; 


SECONDS THE ADDRESS. 


25 


but Mr. Peel preferred, with his constitutional good 
sense, to study his audience. Although he occa¬ 
sionally spoke, it was only on questions of a prac¬ 
tical nature which he happened to understand ; nor 
did he venture on a c set speech/ till after he had 
been about a year a member of the House, when 
Mr. Perceval, then Prime Minister, called on him 
to second the Address. His speech was a decided 
‘success.’ It displayed just enough of the graces of 
oratory to adorn its sound practical conclusions. 
Its chief feature, besides a well-timed and manly 
tribute to the Duke of Wellington, then fighting 
in Spain, was in the following passage :—‘ England/ 
he said, c desired neither peace nor war, but she 
would suffer no indignity, and would make no un¬ 
becoming concessions. With every engine of perfidy 
and power against us, the situation of this country 
had proved to Buonaparte that it was invulnerable 
in the very point to which all his efforts were 
directed. The accounts of the exports of British 
manufactures would be found to exceed by several 
millions those of any former period. With regard 
to our internal condition, while France had been 
stripped of the flower of her youth, England had 
continued flourishing, and the only alteration had 
been the substitution of machinery for manual 
labour.’ 

Within a very short time of the dehvery of this 
speech, Mr. Perceval offered to Mr. Peel the post of 
Under-Secretary for the Home Department—an 
auspicious commencement of public life for a young 
man of twenty-two. 

Thus cursorily, and to the exclusion of much 
interesting domestic and personal detail, has the 
first portion of Sir Robert Peel’s life been touched, 
because this little work professes to aim at analysis 


26 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


of character, rather than at the reproduction of 
facts which are so familiar. He is now established 
as one of the marked men who are appointed to 
run a career, alike for their own fame and the good 
of their country. Of his antecedents all that was 
known did not place him in a more favourable 
position than that which had been held by Mr. 
Robinson (Lord Ripon), Lord Henry Petty (Lord 
Lansdowne), and others who had been helped over 
the early obstructions of life ; nor, indeed, was it 
till many years had passed that Mr. Peel gave pro¬ 
mise of his ultimate eminence, or of his bearing 
within himself powers that would one day stamp 
his character with such strong individuality. 

For many years Mr. Peel continued identified 
with the Tory party, as it was in those days. His 
father, who had received the baronetcy from Mr. 
Pitt, was a Tory of the old school, with whom his 
political opinions were a faith. Known as a friend, 
and even as an adviser on commercial subjects, of 
Pitt, the first Sir Robert Peel reflected in his son 
the strongly-pronounced character of his views ; 
and as the discipline of party then even more 
than now it does demanded acquiescence from its 
neophytes and pupils, whatever was latent in the 
mind of the young man lay silent in the shadow of 
his adopted creed. It is not surprising, therefore, 
that as he advanced in reputation, and excelled his 
former self in debate, his principles should have 
been taken for granted, until the conscript fathers 
of Toryism looked on him as one of their most 
promising pupils, and as the future champion of 
their political faith. There can be no doubt that, 
to the delight of his father, he was thus regarded 
by the Eldons and Percevals, who then ruled the 
will, if not the thoughts of men. If, in his own 


CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND. 


27 


heart, the young politician could not quite adopt 
the tyrannical and aggressive character of their 
creed, it is natural to suppose that, with an Oxford 
education, with the example and precept of such a 
father, and above all, with the association and 
patronage of the Tory officials around him, he had 
acquired as much confidence in the system he was 
destined for so many years to uphold, as was con¬ 
sistent with a disposition naturally observant, 
inquiring, and thoughtful. At all events, it is 
not necessary to presume habitual dissimulation. 

As Under-Secretary for the Home Department, 
Mr. Peel continued a comparatively silent member 
of the House of Commons, but carefully studying 
the business of official life, during about two years; 
when the assassination of his immediate patron, Mr. 
Perceval, caused a change in his position. 

IV. 

interval between the year 1812 (in August 
of which he was a privy councillor) and the 
year 1818, presents us with one—almost the earliest 
—phase in the official life of Sir Robert Peel. 
During that period he filled the important post (to 
which he was appointed in September, 1812) of 
Chief Secretary for Ireland ; one of difficulty and 
delicacy even at the present day, when so many 
causes of intestine antagonism and strife in that 
country have been removed ; but at that time one 
of the most arduous, dangerous, disagreeable, to a 
man of high honour and sensitive mind, in the 
whole raime of ministerial offices. 

o 

Well might the deceased statesman, when in 
later life he attained to the supreme power, exclaim 


28 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


that ‘ Ireland was his greatest difficulty/ Six of 
the earliest years of his manhood, the spring-time 
of that season of youth when man is most impres¬ 
sionable, and when moral disgusts leave their most 
enduring traces in the memory, were spent either 
in Ireland, or in the direct control of Irish affairs. 
At four-and-twenty years of age, to become the 
mark for all the envenomed shafts of unscrupulous 
partizanship and systematized slander; to see his 
purest motives vilified and distorted by adverse 
factions, and his noblest acts, his wisest measures, 
neutralized by a perverse national temperament; 
this was a severe trial to the character of a young 
statesman, whose life had been sworn to the service 
of his country, and whose aspirations tended to the 
good of mankind. But harder still to suffer than 
the virulent abuse of foes, was the mistaken zeal 
of friends. Willing to administer the affairs of 
Ireland with a high and even-handed justice, the 
exclusion still maintained against the Catholics 
compelled him to govern mainly by the agency of 
their political and religious opponents. With these, 
antagonism to the papists amounted to a passionate 
frenzy, and every step taken by the young Secre¬ 
tary in order to assert the majesty of the law and 
the dignity of the government, was hailed by 
zealots as a new manifestation of his devotedness 
to the cause of intolerance and ascendancy. This 
feeling of course reacted upon the Catholics, whose 
leaders and chief newspaper writers were accus¬ 
tomed to brand Mr. Peel with the most disgraceful 
epithets furnished by the armoury of vituperation, 
or suggested by the precedents of history against 
tyrannical ad ministrators. 

Yet the young Secretary as little participated in 
the bigotry of the one class as he deserved the 


STATE OF IRELAND; 1812 TO 1818. 2d 

animosity of the other. Through the ensanguined 
medium of religious passions, neither saw him as 
he truly was,—an officer of the government, charged 
with a mission of awful responsibility, who desired 
to make himself master of the wants of Ireland, to 
study the character of the people, and in the mean¬ 
while to put down crime and secure life and pro¬ 
perty. On the one hand, he had to contend against 
miscreants like those who afterwards bore the name 
of Whitefeet,—demons in human form, with whom 
to murder, when commanded so to do, was a high 
moral duty ; and—task still more hard !—with 
their lay and clerical apologists : men so blinded 
and frenzied by the sense of wrong, that they 
forgot the first principles of the religion they pro¬ 
fessed ; or with the watchful partizans of the rival 
creed, exulting in such evidences of iniquity, and 
seizing on them to brand the peaceful and loyal 
Catholics with the odium only clue to the extrava¬ 
gances and the sins of a few violent fanatics. 

It was partly to meet the difficulties created by 
this state of things, that the youthful Secretary 
introduced, in June 1814, his measure for ensuring 
the better administration of the laws in Ireland ; 
a measure founded on a careful examination of the 
real causes which secured impunity for agrarian 
crime. In an able and temperate, and impressive 
because temperate, address, Mr. Peel proposed that 
measure to the House of Commons, detailing such 
a system of organized atrocity, as even at this day 
curdles the blood. Unhappily, within the last few 
years, this hideous evil has once more developed 
itself in Ireland; and although it is not so wide¬ 
spread as formerly, the disease is still so virulent 
in its exhibition, as to require remedies not very 
far removed from those prescribed by Mr. Peel 


30 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

nearly forty years ago. Then, however, the mis¬ 
chief was so universal and so threatening, that the 
government were forced to substitute for the pro¬ 
posed measure of legislation a general insurrection 
act. 

It is gratifying to find that even at this early 
period of his public life, and under circumstances 
of such strong provocation to a man who had re¬ 
ceived his training at Oxford, the tone of his 
speeches breathed moderation, and an anxious de¬ 
sire to attain to truth in knowledge and justice 
in government. He was contemptuously called 
‘Orange' Peel; yet no better foundation for the 
charge could be found than that he was the chief 
secretary of a Tory government, and the rising 
hope of the Tory party. We search in vain for 
proofs of his ‘ OrangeisnT—at least, of its bigotry 
and intolerance, in either his acts or his speeches. 
Unfortunately, the public are too ready to listen 
to calumniators, too slow to sift the facts. The 
young Secretary was not a partizan of Orangeism, 
but he had to administer the government at a 
period when what was termed ( Protestant ascen¬ 
dancy' was almost tantamount to the law of the 
land, and when there existed no other machinery 
for carrying on the government than that provided 
by the professors of the opinions embodied in that 
term. Even in England, although some of the 
most enlightened men of the age were favourable 
to the emancipation of the Catholics, ‘ public 
opinion’—that mysterious, intangible, but omnipo¬ 
tent agent in national affairs—was still sternly 
opposed to any such measure. Whatever might 
have been, we will not say the opinions, but the 
tendencies of Mr. Peel in reference to the general 
question of religious liberty, to have abandoned the 


DID NOT FAVOUR ORANGEISM. 


31 


formularized system of ruling, would have been to 
paralyse the right arm of his authority. He would 
have estranged friends without propitiating enemies. 
Even since emancipation has been the law, and 
perfect equality the theory of government in Ire¬ 
land, recent lords lieutenant and secretaries of 
state have been compelled to resort to a system 
not dissimilar. To govern Ireland by 4 undertakers/ 
was an ancient device: the same thing, disguised 
m various forms, has become a modern necessity. 
The balance, it is true, has of late years been less 
violently swayed by the one party or the other; but 
there has always been a sensible preponderance 
according to the political colour of the English 
government. To-day, the Church and the Tories; 
to-morrow, the Pope and the Liberals. There is 
always so much real work to be done in Ireland; 
the elements of discord are so fearfully ready to 
rebel against the law of order ; that a local ruler is 
almost bound to avail himself, as a social necessity, 
of every means of control and repression that can 
be jrressed into the service of the imperial authority. 

But while at that day Mr. Peel had no alterna¬ 
tive but to govern mainly through the agency of 
those with whose opinions his own coincided, it is 
important to note that he never e gave up to party 
what was meant for mankind/ He must be judged 
by his own acts and words, not by the interpreta¬ 
tions of enemies smarting under wrongs, and who 
were only blameable in so far as they personified in 
him the oppression of an age or the hostile prin¬ 
ciples of a century. Attempting as we here do, to 
anticipate the duty of the historian, it is of the 
last importance, in judging the character of Sir 
Robert Peel, to know how f rrlier opinions 

bore out the charge of later 3ncy ; because, 


32 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

if it could be ascertained that his mind was always 
in a state of development, and that his inquiring 
faculties were ever at work, then, his later career 
would give him an additional claim on the respect 
of his countrymen. With the private opinions of 
public men the public have no concern ; but only 
with their public acts and declarations, which, for 
the world at large, constitute their life. 

We find in the speeches and ministerial acts of 
Mr. Peel at this period, a deep-seated desire to en¬ 
force the law, and arrest the progress of crime ; but 
no alacrity to put in action extraordinary powers 
granted by the legislature. By a judicious balan¬ 
cing of the demands of the magistracy for troops 
with the opinion of the military commander as to 
their necessit}^ the natural craving of Irish Tory 
magistrates for coercive measures was practically 
neutralized ; while, on the other hand, no vigilance 
was spared in putting down the atrocious system of 
agrarian crime. To the wise foresight and perse¬ 
vering energy of Mr. Peel, Ireland is mainly in¬ 
debted for that most valuable force the constabulaiy. 
One of the greatest evils with which successive 
administrations in Ireland have had to contend, 
has been the reckless violence, and unbridled licen¬ 
tiousness of the press. One passage, from some 
observations of Mr. Peel in a speech in April, 1816, 
on the general condition of Ireland, so forcibly de¬ 
scribes the actual conduct of the press in Ireland 
at that time, that we cannot do better than repro¬ 
duce it. He said :—“ Among the causes which 
have unquestionably contributed to produce the 
present disturbances and outrages in Ireland, may 
be reckoned the public press of that country. I 
am far from meaning to say, that the benefits 
which result from a free press do not greatly, if not 


STATE OF THE IRISH PRESS. 


33 


wholly, overbalance the evils of its abuse. I would 
even assert, that what might be called the extreme 
licentiousness of the press, in a former period of 
our history, mainly assisted in securing to us in¬ 
valuable privileges. But what can be said in favour 
of a press which never seeks to enlighten the pub¬ 
lic mind—which never aims at the dissemination 
of truth—which never endeavours to correct the 
morals, or improve the happiness of the people? 
On the contrary, the most studious efforts are 
made by it to keep alive and foment discord, and 
the malignant influence of the worst passions of 
our nature. Their only object is, to make it be 
believed that the very sources of justice are cor¬ 
rupted ; that the verdicts of juries are always 
venal; and the conduct of magistrates always base. 
By such insinuations, industriously and persever- 
ingly spread, many persons are driven into the 
commission of some paltry offence, when, in my 
opinion, they are infinitely less guilty, in a moral 
point of view, than those vile and degraded beings 
by whom they are instigated. The most infamous 
falsehoods and calumnies are uttered against magis¬ 
trates, thus pointing them out to the vengeance of 
those misguided men whose passions are easily 
worked on. The consequence of such general 
and indiscriminate abuse as defiles the public press 
in Ireland, involving every person whose station, 
rank, or conduct renders them the least public, is, 
that no one dreads censure; and that, therefore, 
the source of public opinion—that great auxiliary 
to a free press—is utterly destroyed. The House 
can form no idea of the licentiousness of the press 
to which I allude, by reflecting on what is called 
licentiousness in this country/ 

It will be imagined how difficult a task was the 

C 


34 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


government of Ireland in the face of a press so male¬ 
ficent, and a social system so distracted, that aid 
from partisans was the thing the most to be dreaded 
by a government, because the sure signal for an 
exasperation of strife. 

Mr. Peel did not allow himself to be daunted 
by these difficulties. During his administration, 
he steadily explored the sources of Irish evils, and 
more than a quarter of a century after, he at¬ 
tempted as Minister to profit by his early expe¬ 
rience. Although he was denounced in the press, 
and even in Parliament, as a bigoted Orangeman, 
the utmost he ever said on behalf of the Orange 
Lodges was to defend them from false charges. 

At the same time, during his administration, 
and for many years afterwards, he let pass no 
occasion of appealing to his co-religionists to ab¬ 
stain from offensive demonstrations insulting to the 
Catholics. He always preached moderation and 
self-restraint. On one occasion, in 1823, when 
taunted by Mr. Abercrombie, he emphatically said, 
that were he a gentleman of Ireland, he would 
use all the influence of his station to induce the 
Orangemen to desist from any of those practices 
which are considered so objectionable by their 
Catholic countrymen. Two years later, he de¬ 
clared, in his place in Parliament, that any person 
proved to belong to an Orange lodge would be 
dismissed from the public Service—a declaration 
which gave immense satisfaction to the Irish Ca¬ 
tholics of those days, and helped their leaders in 
putting down the secret societies of the peasantry. 
His declaration was speedily followed by a promise 
that the Orange Societies should be abandoned—a 
promise which was not kept. While distracted by 
the wretched political and religious conflicts of the 


HIS EARLY IRISH POLICY. 35 

rival factions, the young statesman was carefully 
studying the social condition of the Irish, and the 
means of furthering their productive energies. 
From the first years of Iris local administration to 
the last hours of his general superintendence as 
Home Secretary, we find him constantly impress¬ 
ing on the Imperial Parliament the importance of 
social rather than political remedies—the necessity 
for fostering the butter trade, and the other pro¬ 
ducing interests of the south; and above all, of 
encouraging the linen manufacture of the north. 
The selfish and cowardly practice of too many 
landlords, leaving their starving tenantry to the 
mercy of agents and middle-men, on whom was 
put the rack-rent screw to furnish the means for 
extravagance in London or abroad, found in Mr. 
Peel an eloquent censor. He pointed out, not 
merely the material exhaustion, but also the moral 
and social deprivation resulting from this abandon¬ 
ment of the first duty of the owner of the soil. 
He also showed that another evil resulted from 
this practice, in the want of a resident magistracy, 
so that the government were compelled to appoint 
inferior and often unfit persons. Mr. Peel had 
early formed an estimate of the Irish character 
higher than that of average observers. He ac¬ 
counts for conflicting opinions on the subject, by 
the different aspect of the people in different 
counties. Speaking of his own personal expe¬ 
rience of the people of some counties, he said it 
was impossible to find anywhere men more tract¬ 
able, more obedient to the laws, or more disposed 
to pay all deference to their superiors. He be¬ 
lieved that they possessed great fidelity, in their 
dealings with each other great honesty, and that 
from their early marriages they were in general 

C 2 


36 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

very chaste. Here we have a few points, establishing 
that in his public and official character, Mr. Peel, 
as Irish Secretary, was very far indeed from being the 
bigoted partisan. Yet in this light he is even now 
too often represented by persons who sacrifice his¬ 
torical truth to their desire to establish a striking 
contrast between his earlier and later career as a 
ruler of Ireland. For the general policy of the 
administration of Lord Liverpool he was not re¬ 
sponsible, being at that time only a pupil of party, 
and a subordinate in the government. A subject 
on which he spoke at various times with unusual 
warmth was that of the education of the people 
of Ireland. Bearing testimony to the avidity of 
the lower orders for education, whether for them¬ 
selves, as adults, or for their children, and to the 
sacrifices they made to procure it, he very early 
laid it down as a principle, ‘that it was better to 
have a well-instructed and an enlightened Catholic 
population than an ignorant and bigoted one/ 

This principle, frequently enunciated by Mr. 
Peel while Secretary for Ireland, in 1813, in 1815, 
and in 1816, afterwards became the basis of the 
‘ National’ system of education in that country. 
He advocated the same general principle again in 
1822 ; in 1824, he specifically recommended the 
Protestant and Catholic children should be united 
under one system of education, and that prose- 
lytism should, as a point of honour, be abjured on 
both sides. In 1826, he supported the present 
Lord Monteagle’s motion on the subject of Educa¬ 
tion in Ireland ; with the view of enforcing that 
proposition, citing in its favour the late Archbishop 
Murray’s plan, that the children of the two creeds 
should receive a secular education in common, but 
their religious instruction apart; and that there 


{ MIXED’ EDUCATION IN IRELAND. 37 

should be in the schools, to be used in common, 
such selections from the Scriptures as could be 
used by the children, c without trenching on those 
doctrines upon which the two sects differ/ And 
when at length the plan thus recommended was 
embodied in a measure, under the control of Mr. 
Secretary Stanley (the present Earl of Derby), it 
met with the cordial support of Sir Robert Peel. 
As an additional, if a minor, proof of the en¬ 
lightened moderation of Mr. Peel, while Secretary 
for Ireland under a ‘ Protestant ascendancy * ad¬ 
ministration, it may be added, that in referring to 
the professors of the antagonistic creed, he always 
avoided the (to them) offensive theological taunt 
implied in the term ‘ Roman/ and studiously 
spoke of them as ‘ Catholics/ Whatever his own 
views, he thus early felt that he must treat them 
as a statesman, not as a religious partisan. In 
1817, Mr. Peel was returned to parliament as re¬ 
presentative of Oxford University; and in 1818 
lie resigned his post of Chief Secretary for Ire¬ 
land. 

One incident during this period of Sir Robert 
Peel's life demands notice, in so far as it exenr- 
.plifies his sensitiveness on the score of his personal 
honour, although so little moved by the passions 
of the hour. From the really great Irish patriot 
of the day, the illustrious Grattan, Mr. Peel re¬ 
ceived a dignified and sincere homage to the lofty 
moderation and excellent good temper which had 
characterized his Irish administration; but from 
O’Connell he met with abuse of the most coarse 
and vulgar kind. It was from him that he re¬ 
ceived the sobriquet of ‘ Orange Peeland in 
various speeches he denounced the young Secretary 
as the cold-blooded instrument of tyranny. It 


38 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


was rarely that O’Connell did not redeem the vul¬ 
garity necessary to amuse an Irish mob with some 
touch of humour, some dash of vigorous charac¬ 
ter-painting ; and in one of his tirades he certainly 
did hit off Mr. Peel’s logical plausibility when he 
described him as ‘a lad ready to vindicate any¬ 
thing—everything ! ’ Mr. Peel took no notice of 
O’Connell’s virulent attacks until the debate (in 
1814) on Sir Henry Parnell’s motion in favour of 
the Catholic claims, when he quoted some of the 
worst passages from various speeches of O’Connell, 
in order to show the danger of concessions which 
might be made a lever by such a man. Mr. 
O’Connell so far forgot himself as to say, at a 
public meeting shortly after, that Mr. Peel would 
not dare in his presence, or in any place where he 
was liable to personal account, to use a single ex¬ 
pression derogatory to his interest or his honour. 
Mr. Peel sent a friend to O’Connell to say that he 
held himself responsible for whatever he might 
have said in Parliament ; but it could not be set¬ 
tled which of the two should give the challenge. 
Subsequently O’Connell denounced Mr. Peel’s 
conduct as a trick, when the latter sent him a 
challenge. The duel was prevented by the arrest 
of Mr. O’Connell. 


V. 

I N the interval between his resignation of the Chief 
Secretaryship for Ireland, and his appointment 
to that of Secretary of State for the Home Depart¬ 
ment, Mr. Peel remained an ‘ independent’ member 
of Parliament, but giving his general support to the 
government. It was at this period of his life that 


THE CURRENCY QUESTION. 39 

lie became identified with the great measure of 
Currency Reform. 

In the alarming exigencies arising out of the 
French war, Mr. Pitt had authorized the Bank of 
England to suspend cash payments during the 
pleasure of Parliament. In the first flush of loyalty, 
and of a prosperity sustained by the concentration 
of our national energies, the effects of the enormous 
increase of paper money (not only of the Bank of 
England, but of private banks, and even of indi¬ 
viduals,) did not manifest themselves in an evil 
shape. But in the course of years, the excessive 
issues of notes led to their depreciation in value. 
Guineas were at a premium. The timid or the 
wise bought them and laid them by, because not 
only were they increasing in comparative value, 
but the decline of public confidence seemed to 
point to a time when they might become the only 
available medium. Mr. Pitt's measure was sternly 
protested against by Fox and the opposition of the 
day (1797). In 1805, Jenkinson (the first Earl of 
Liverpool) addressed a Getter to the king' on the 
gold coin of the realm and the condition thereof, in 
which he protested against the excessive issues of 
paper money, and called for a parliamentary inquiry. 
In 1806, the present Marquis of Lansdowne (then 
Lord Henry Petty) chose the same theme in its 
application to Ireland for his maiden speech, which, 
by indicating the direction of his studies, led to his 
being named Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 
ministry of ‘ All the Talents.' Ricardo first earned 
his fame by publishing a remarkable pamphlet on 
the high price of bullion and the depreciation of 
paper; and at length, thirteen years after the ori¬ 
ginal measure of Mr. Pitt, Mr. Francis Horner 
obtained the assent of the House of Commons to 


40 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


the appointment of a committee on the subject, of 
which he was chairman. After long examination 
and violent controversy, Mr. Horner stood forth in 
the House of Commons on the 8th of May, 1811, 
to propose certain resolutions adoj^ted by the com¬ 
mittee, the effect of which was to order the converti¬ 
bility on demand of all paper currency, the limitation 
of the Bank Restriction Act to two years, and an 
intimation to the Bank of England directors that, 
in regulating their issues of paper, they should look 
to the state of the foreign exchanges, and to the 
price of bullion. 

Yansittart was now the Chancellor of the Exche¬ 
quer. He opposed Mr. Horner's resolutions. He 
asserted that bank notes were for the internal pur¬ 
poses of the country, to which they were restricted, 
still equivalent to legal coin ; and he called on 
the House to ‘ pledge itself to that belief.' In the 
face of the fact that a guinea, even if worn to the 
bone, would sell for at least twenty-two shillings, 
this was a difficult article of faith, and all the artil¬ 
lery of government votes was required to enforce 
it against the common sense of the day. Mr. Can¬ 
ning exercised his wit on the tempting proposition; 
and Curran said that ‘Wellington had eaten his 
Christmas pies at Torres Vedras,' and that every 
hundred pounds of gold that was sent him there, 
cost in London one hundred and forty pounds. 

Still the government prevailed. The late Sir 
Robert Peel gave his vote in support of the Chan¬ 
cellor of the Exchequer's resolutions, and against 
those of Mr. Horner. He was probably influenced 
at the time mainly by the opinions of his father, 
who belonged to a school of financiers of which 
there are many disciples in many countries. He 
believed that paper money was the best circulating 


OPPOSES CURRENCY REFORM. 


41 


medium for internal purposes; and he had this 
excuse for his belief, that it is very questionable 
whether the manufacturing system of this country 
would have attained its sudden development, if 
money had not been so abundant. He was, too, 
a passionate admirer of William Pitt, and associ¬ 
ated paper money with the triumphant resistance 
of this country to Buonaparte. Of his father, the 
late Sir Robert Peel said, ‘ that he moved in a con¬ 
fined sphere ; that having lived under his roof till 
the age of manhood, he had had many opportuni¬ 
ties of discovering that he possessed a mechanical 
genius and a good heart/ Still, on a subject like 
the currency, he might well defer to the opinions 
of one whom in all respects he honoured; and 
there was this additional reason for his support of 
the government, that however sound might be the 
principles laid down by Mr. Horner’s committee, 
their realization must clearly be a work of time. 
It was the great characteristic of Sir Robert Peel, 
that with him principles were always leavened by 
expediency; that he distinguished between what 
was abstractedly right and what was practicable, 
so that his legislative actions always lagged behind 
his intimate convictions. 

A strange fatality has always pursued Sir Robert 
Peel. He has ever seemed the most prominent 
opponent of the changes afterwards associated with 
his name. As with Catholic emancipation and the 
corn laws, so with the currency. Personally, it is 
true, he was not so ardent a supporter of the paper 
money system as his father; but the prominency 
of the one lent an implied sincerity to the assent 
of the other. There was no little astonishment, 
therefore, when Mr. Peel, in 1819, became chair¬ 
man of the committee appointed in February of 


42 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT REEL, BART. 


that year (a committee of secresy) to inquire into the 
state of the Bank of England with respect to the re¬ 
sumption of cash payments. The proceedings of this 
time in parliament afford a singular commentary on 
the action of ‘ party' in this country. In 1797, Charles 
James Fox, as leader of the opposition, had de¬ 
nounced Pitt's Bank Restriction Act as a measure 
little short of spoliation. c It had struck at the 
foundation of the public credit of the country, by 
seizing the money belonging to individuals, depo¬ 
sited in the public treasury of the public creditor, 
and afterwards withholding and refusing payment 
of that money.' Two-and-twenty years had passed 
away, and still there was a Tory government in 
power; but that government had been compelled, 
by the monetary and commercial difficulties of the 
time, to adopt conclusions the reverse of those held 
by Ritt, and closely resembling those embodied in 
the denunciation of Fox. Yet, in the discharge of 
a constitutional duty, the opposition, still Whig, 
felt compelled to resist the government. The 
c committee of secresy' was to be appointed by 
ballot, and each member could put a list of twenty- 
one names in a box on the table of the House. 
As, however, the government had circulated a spe¬ 
cific list, which it was supposed their supporters 
would use, the opposition declined to take any 
share in the matter, either as voters or scrutineers . 
Mr. Lambton (an honoured name among the 
Whigs) was proposed as a scrutineer; but he flatly 
refused, on the plea that as it was well-known who 
were to constitute the committee, ‘lie would 
decline picking up their names/ Of course Mr. 
Lambton and his friends were right in objecting to 
an unfair proceeding; but as it was notorious that 
the objects of the government were identical with 


CARRIES CURRENCY REFORM. 


43 


those of Mr. Horner and of their own deceased 
leader, it is remarkable that they should have 
chosen that time for their sturdy abstinence. Mr. 
Peel showed himself more practical and less im¬ 
practicable. His adhesion to the government 
views would inevitably involve a change of opi¬ 
nions ; but he did not shrink from his public duty, 
however repugnant to his private views. It is 
right to dwell upon this early instance of his new 
reading of the duty of a statesman, because it throws 
a light on all his subsequent conduct at great poli¬ 
tical crises, and helps to explain why he distanced 
his rivals, and, to use the phrase of Sir Henry 
George Ward—a phrase which may be either a 
coarse sarcasm or a homely truth—became the 
4 Great Doer of the Age.' 

The Bullion Committee sat for three months. 
On the 6th of May, Mr. Peel, as its chairman, 
brought up the report; and on the 24th of that 
month, he rose to propose the resolutions which it 
embodied. His speech was heralded by one of 
those dramatic incidents which are so rare in our 
public proceedings; rare, perhaps, because they 
really exercise so slight an influence on the conduct 
of our public men. His father, Sir Robert Peel, in 
presenting a petition from merchants of the city of 
London against the proposed change in the cur¬ 
rency laws, alluded to the relative positions of him¬ 
self and his son with respect to the question. 
Speaking with much emotion, but with the unpre¬ 
tending frankness which marked his parliamentary 
conduct, he said : ‘ To-night I shall have to oppose 
a very near and dear relative. But while it is my 
own sentiment that I have a duty to perform, I 
respect those who do theirs, and who consider that 
duty to be paramount to all other considerations. 


44 THE LATE Sill ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

I have mentioned the name of Mr. Pitt. My own 
impression is certainly a strong one in favour of 
that great man. All of us have some bias, and I 
always thought him the first man in the country. 
I well remember, when the near and dear relative 
I have alluded to was a child, I observed to some 
friends, that the man who discharged his duty to 
his country in the manner Mr. Pitt had done, was 
the man of all the world to be admired, and the 
most to be imitated ; and I thought at that mo¬ 
ment that if my life, and that of my dear relative, 
should be spared, I would one day present him to 
his country to follow in the same path. It is very 
natural that such should be my wish ; and I will 
only say further of him, that though he is deviating 
from the proper path in this instance, his head and 
heart are in the right place, and I think they will 
soon recal him to the right way/ 

The son did not pass unnoticed this allusion of 
his father. At the close of an able and powerful 
speech, in which he had explained his own reasons 
for a change of opinion, and the general views of 
the committee, he said: ‘Many other difficulties 
presented themselves to me in discussing this ques¬ 
tion: among them is one which it pains me to 
observe—1 mean the necessity I am under of op¬ 
posing myself to an authority, to which I have 
always bowed from my youth up, and to which I 
hope I shall always continue to bow with deference. 
My excuse is now, that I have a great public duty 
imposed upon me, and that whatever may be my 
private feelings, from that duty I must not shrink/ 
Into the general arguments urged by the speaker 
in favour of the new Currency Bill, it is not neces¬ 
sary here to enter. There is a passage, however, 
in his sneech, which not merelv illustrates his own 


CURRENCY REFORM. 


45 


state of mind at the time, but also evidences that 
moral courage which, later in life, led him to avow 
his changes of opinion, and to act upon them. In 
alluding to his opposition to Mr. Horner's resolu¬ 
tions in 1811, he said : ‘ I am free to say, that in 

consequence of the evidence we received, and our 
discussions on it, my own opinions, with regard to 
the general question, have undergone a material 
change. I am ready to avow, without shame or 
remorse, that I went into the committee with very 
different opinions from those which I at present 
entertain. My views on the subject were mate¬ 
rially different when I voted against the resolutions 
brought forward in 1811, by Mr. Horner, as the 
chairman of the Bullion Committee; but having 
gone into this inquiry determined to dismiss all 
former impressions, and to obliterate from my me¬ 
mory the vote which I gave some years back, I 
resolved to apply to the subject my undivided and 
unprejudiced attention, and to adopt every infer¬ 
ence that authentic information or mature reflec¬ 
tion could offer to my mind. The consequence is, 
that although I should probably, even now, vote, 
if it were again brought before the House, in oppo¬ 
sition to the practical measure. formerly recom¬ 
mended, yet I now, with very little modification, 
concur in the principles laid down in the fourteen 
first resolutions submitted to our consideration by 
the very able and much-lamented individual I have 
named. I conceive those principles to represent 
the true nature and laws of our monetary system; 
and it is without shame or repentance I thus bear 
testimony to the superior sagacity of one with 
whose views I agree on this point, although I differed 
with him so much on many other great political 
questions. I now feel that that distinguished states- 


46 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


man's opinions on this subject were such as must 
render his character still more respected, and his 
loss still more sensibly felt by the community/ 

In this frank declaration, we find one of the 
great guiding principles of the late Sir Robert 
Peel's career—one which, in judging his character, 
it is of importance to bear in mind. The com¬ 
monly received theory assumes that he obstinately 
and violently supported the prevailing opinion or 
system of the hour, until he saw that it was losing 
its ground; and that then he gained popularity by 
as ardently embracing its successor. The result 
produced upon our mind by a very long and care¬ 
ful study of Sir Robert Peel's opinions and conduct 
is, that he was, from the very outset of his career, 
engaged in a perpetual process of examination; 
that he early acquired a habit of looking at the 
practical side of questions, because his false posi¬ 
tion forbade his taking them up on the ground of 
abstract principle; that he arrived, by this process, 
at conclusions contemporaneously with, and corre¬ 
sponding to, those of the public; and that, having 
done so, he fearlessly avowed his change of views, 
and paid honour to those whose foresight or less 
practical and exacting temperament led them to 
see the right in the first instance. From his first 
entrance into public life, he was unconsciously 
Tetting himself down/ Bred in a school of ultra- 
Toryism, but unable, from the constitution of his 
mind, to accept political dogmata without inquiry, 
he constantly applied to them a test, in the facts 
which he was yearly and daily accumulating; so 
that he arrived, at last, at the results sought by the 
inductive method, but by the opposite process. It 
was as if a young man had learned to build up 
beautiful houses and temples, by pulling to pieces 


HIS CURRENCY BILL. 


47 


the works of those who had gone before, and gaining 
wisdom from their faults. So the late Sir Robert 
Peel elaborately dissected the great political fabric 
in whose fanes he had been early taught to worship, 
and then devoted himself to the erection of a new 
one, on a foundation more solid, with materials 
more common, in a style less ornate and mediaeval, 
but on a much broader area, and of a capacity and 
construction more useful to mankind at large. If 
we would rightly understand this man of many 
contradictions, we must look at his early character 
as it was, not through the distorting medium of 
party misconception. The picture will lose in 
colour and depth of contrast; but it will gain in 
truthfulness to nature. 

The principles laid down in the resolutions of 
the Bullion Committee were embodied in a Bill 
which was afterwards known as ‘ Peel's Bill,' be¬ 
cause the young convert had charge of it in the 
House. The great change introduced by that 
measure consisted in the restoration of a metallic 
basis for the currency. Like all great legislative 
changes, however, it led to much individual suffer¬ 
ing. Contracts made in the flush of a paper circu¬ 
lation had to be fulfilled in a dearer currency; and 
while the fund-holder, and the man of fixed income 
generally, gained by the change, the landholder 
was considered to have been a loser. The advo¬ 
cates of a paper currency in this country have 
always been remarkable for violence and virulence 
in their writings and speeches ; and the new law 
and its chief sponsor had to submit to much acri¬ 
monious aspersion from writers who sought to curry 
favour with the classes supposed to have been 
injured. A war of attack, in which the language 
used on the one side was scarcely a remove above 


48 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


slander, and the retorts of Mr. Peel usually resolved 
themselves into unmerciful quizzing of the extreme 
propositions of the ‘ currency doctors/ subsisted for 
many years. The more vulgar and unphilosopliical 
of the objectors were headed by Cobbett. He 
indulged to the full in his vehement and vigorous 
invectives against Mr. Peel, who, however, for 
many years disdained to notice his coarse assailant. 
There were frequent discussions in Parliament on 
the working of the bill. Whenever agricultural 
distress occurred with more than ordinary intensity, 
much of the evil was invariably ascribed to the 
restricted currency. Among many other attempts 
to impugn or overturn the system was the motion 
of Mr. Western, in June, 1822, for a committee to 
inquire into its working, when Mr. Peel expressly 
laid it down as a principle that the 4 standard 9 
of the country should never after be interfered 
with, excejDt in case of an over-ruling necessity ; 
and in a previous debate, at the opening of the 
session of that Parliament, Mr. Peel observed that 
when the bill was passed, and was more popular, 
he took no merit to himself, but gave all to Mr. 
Horner; but now, when it was less popular, he 
still renounced the merit, though embracing its 
full responsibility. In the same speech he elabo¬ 
rately and warmly defended the principle of cash 
payments, and predicted permanent good from it 
to agriculture. 

Lord John Russell, in assailing Sir Robert Peeks 
modified sliding scale, in 1842, spoke of it as ‘ dis¬ 
turbing, but failing to settle/ However true the 
phrase was of the particular scheme, it was untrue 
as a description of Sir Robert Peel’s method of 
legislating. He was always even culpably slow to 
‘ disturb/ but as nervously anxious to ‘ settle/ A 


HIS POLITICAL CAUTION. 


49 


willing self-deception followed each of his great 
1 settlements/—Emancipation, the Currency, Modi¬ 
fication of the Com Laws—as though there were 
some political god Terminus, whose sanction could 
be invoked to the fixity and finality of this new 
boundary. His political opponents, using the li¬ 
cence of party warfare, attributed this habit to a 
purblind nature, affirming that Sir Robert Peel did 
not, because he could not, see farther into the 
future, than to suppose that compromises could 
consolidate into permanent arrangements. We 
incline to the presumption that this seemingly 
limited vision was assumed—that Sir Robert 
Peel, seeing how the misfortunes of continental 
states had resulted from changes too violent and 
sweeping, desired to regulate the action of the 
public mind. He was like the lock-keeper, who 
lets the upper water into the vacuum so gently and 
imperceptibly that the change of altitude is effected 
without a shock. During the last twenty years 
of his life he constituted himself a barometer of 
public opinion. He knew that legislative acts 
which did not find their counterpart and excuse 
in public wants, were worse than useless. In public 
and official intercourse he was always reserved, 
taciturn. All his party (save a select few) com¬ 
plained that he maintained a cold ambiguity. He 
could do no less. ITis position imposed on him 
a species of negative hypocrisy. But in private, 
and with his political intimates, how different was 
the man ! To them he did not fear unfolding his 
ulterior objects, and his faith in the expanding 
energies of his countrymen. He was as the physi¬ 
cian recovering a fever patient, who dare not tell 
of the day when lie will prescribe a nourishing and 
invigorating diet. His political changes went on 

D 


50 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


the principle which demands from joint-stock com¬ 
panies a certain deposit before they can incorpo¬ 
rate ; or on that of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, 
who will not advance money for bnilding a church, 
till the promoters have subscribed the like sum. 
He ‘ doled out’ legislation ; and each time talked 
of finality, because he well knew that though men 
might be building on sand, yet, unless they believed 
it to be terra firma, there was no hope for com¬ 
merce. 

The currency question formed a great exception 
to this strange method of ‘ settling/ Sir Robert 
Peel always adhered to his views of 1819. What 
he did afterwards was designed to give them more 
force and a more general application. Year after 
year he defended the great principles laid down in 
‘ Peeks Bill/ In the first years of his second and 
last administration, he used all his eloquence and 
official power to give them additional force and 
efficiency—and when, in the autumn of 1847, the 
terrible commercial panic occurred, he looked on 
with a stoical coolness till the very moment of the 
impending crash; as the Medicus of old would 
watch the victim on the rack, till the instant when 
the agonizing tension was about to end in death. 

It was this steadfastness that drove his antagonists 
to fury. We have already recalled one dramatic 
incident that attended the introduction of c Peel’s 
Bill/ Another occurred about fifteen years after 
it had been in successful operation, which excited 
the deepest interest at the time, and on which the 
future narrator will dwell in his search for the 
salient points of our cotemporary history. Cobbett, 
now a garrulous old man who had survived his once 
great popularity, had yet been returned to Parlia¬ 
ment for Oldham, through the influence of his 


cobbett's personal attack. 51 

admirer, Mr. John Feilden. Cobbett, always in 
vulgar extremes, used his parliamentary privilege 
to give effect to his Register diatribes against Sir 
Robert Peel. In 1833, he proposed a lengthy 
motion, the effect of which was to pray the king 
to dismiss that statesman from his privy council, as 
the author of the bill of 1819, which had been the 
cause of the distress of the country. A long, and 
though occasionally violent, a feeble speech from 
Cobbett ushered in the motion, which was seconded 
by the Fidus Achates aforesaid. Sir Robert 
answered him in a magnificent speech, of which 
the most remarkable passage, though it has often 
been quoted, will bear repetition here. After an 
elaborate refutation of all Cobbett's arguments, 
and a scornful repudiation of the implied accusa¬ 
tion, that he had himself gained by the change of 
currency, Sir Robert burst forth in these words :— 
‘It is on public grounds that the hon. member 
assails me. The hon. member has not the same 
motives for attacking me which he has had for 
attacking others. I have never lent the hon. 
member my confidence ; from me, the hon. mem¬ 
ber has never received any obligation. His object 
in assailing me is, doubtless, to strike terror by 
the threat of his denunciations,—to discourage 
opposition from the fear of being signalized as a 
victim. But I tell the gentlemen of England, that 
their best security is in boldly facing and defying 
such insidious efforts. God forbid that the hon. 
member's speculations on the prospect of public 
confusion should be realized. I labour under no 
anxiety that they will. I feel confident, that what¬ 
ever may be the political differences that divide 
public men, all who are interested in the upholding 
of law and property will unite in their defence 

D 2 


52 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

to put down such attempts. Not only would it 
be the bitterest calamity, but a calamity embit¬ 
tered by the greatest disgrace, to live under such 
an ignoble tyranny as he would impose. 

Come the eleventh plague, rather than this should be ; 

Come sink us rather in the sea; 

Come, rather, pestilence, and reap ns down ; 

Come God’s sword, rather than our own. 

Let rather Roman come again, 

Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane. 

In all the bonds we ever bore, 

We grieved, we sighed, we wept;—we never blushed 
before. 

Blush indeed we shall, if we submit to this base 
and vulgar domination ; and I for one, believing 
as I do, that I have been selected as an object 
of attack, for the purpose of discouraging resist¬ 
ance to the insidious efforts which the hon. gentle¬ 
man is daily making to weaken the foundations 
of property and the authority of the law, I will, 
at least, preserve myself from the reproach of 
having furthered the objects he has in view, by 
any symptom of intimidation or submission/ 

The passage from old Abraham Cowley, deli¬ 
vered with the fine sonorous voice and lofty 
manner into which Sir Robert Peel fell in moments 
of real excitement, produced an electrical effect. 
Well we remember the scene. Cobbett, his grey 
hairs pleading for his sincerity, had been heard as a 
duty, but with regret. His antagonist had borne 
himself along on the rising sympathy of the 
House. Rarely, indeed, does the British senate 
even seem to do injustice ; but now, the disgust of 
the listeners, and their excitement under Sir 
Robert's stirring address, overpowered all forms. 
Cobbett rose, was met with a shout almost of 
execration, retired to his seat, rose again, again 


AS HOME SECRETARY. 


53 


was met with an indignant repulse, once more 
and yet once more essayed to speak against the 
storm of passion, till at last he staggered to his 
place beside his seconder, for the first time per¬ 
haps in his life utterly quelled by his fellow-men. 
The accused statesman, gathering himself up with 
dignity, declared he would not vote on a question 
so personal to himself, and left the house majesti¬ 
cally amidst a hurricane of cheers. Four mem¬ 
bers only, John O’Connell, Thomas Att’wood, 
James Roe, and Patrick Leader, were found sup¬ 
porting Cobbett and Feilden, while the voters for 
Peel numbered two hundred and ninety-eight ! 
Then came an incident scarcely less dramatic. 
Lord Althorp, the whig chief of the House, moved 
that the resolution should be expunged from the 
journals . On a division there were still only four 
against the motion, Feargus O’Connor supplying 
the place of John O’Connell ; and, the votes on the 
other side amounting to 295, the resolution of Lord 
Althorp was carried out. From this time forth Sir 
Robert Peel heard no more of these coarse and 
malignant imputations. 


VI. 

I N 1822 Mr. Peel again accepted office—as Secre¬ 
tary of State for the Home Department, in 
place of Lord Sidmouth. He discharged the duties 
of that post with dignity, firmness, and temper, 
during a period of no ordinary difficulty, in the 
face of an Opposition who carried on a harassing 
warfare, and with a people who had become dis¬ 
contented and even turbulent under the effects of 


54 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


the reaction that had followed the long war. His 
parliamentary speeches during this period were 
chiefly confined to the routine business of his de¬ 
partment, except that he offered a continuous 
though not a bigoted opposition to the Roman- 
catholic claims. He was, however, far more use¬ 
fully employed as an administrative officer. 

The same good fortune that had associated his 
name with currency reform while an independent 
member of Parliament, now identified him, as a 
member of the government, with measures of vast 
social importance. For many years enlightened 
and philanthropic men had sought to lessen the 
rigours of a barbarous penal code, and a scarcely 
less barbarous executive system of punishment. 
Bentham, but more especially Romilly, and after 
him Mackintosh, had by incessant parliamentary 
and printed arguments, effectually aroused the 
attention and touched the sympathies of the public. 
The death of Romilly having left the subject in 
the hands of Mackintosh, that distinguished man 
had carried in the House of Commons a resolution 
to the effect, that in the next session tliev would 
take into consideration the means of increasing the 
efficacy of the criminal laws by abating their undue 
rigour. An intimation was conveyed, that the 
government were preparing measures on the sub¬ 
ject; which was at last, though not without re¬ 
luctance, left in their hands. Not to enter too 
minutely into the history of the proceedings, it 
may suffice to say, that between 1824 and 1827, 
Mr. Peel prepared and carried various measures, 
with the full approval of Parliament, by which 
many capital punishments were abolished, and the 
general severity of the criminal code essentially 
mitigated. To Mr. Peel was due the merit of a 


REFORMS THE CRIMINAL LAW. 


55 


most careful and laborious investigation of the sub¬ 
ject, a minute examination of the various statutes, 
and their general arrangement into one compre¬ 
hensive system. His own opinion of his own share 
in this great work was very modestly expressed by 
him whde introducing the most important of the 
measures. He succinctly described the work, too, 
when he said that it was his object to abolish every 
part of the criminal statutes that could not with 
safety be acted upon, and to accommodate the laws 
relating to crime to the present circumstances of 
the country and the improved state of society. He 
subsequently followed up the subject, and, in the 
year 1830, proposed a measure to limit the punish¬ 
ment of death in cases of forgery. We may also 
here refer to that great and most salutary reform, 
for which we are indebted to Sir Robert Peel, the 
destruction of the old system of watching the 
metropolis, and the establishment of the new police 
—a body of men which still goes by the name of 
‘ Peelers * with the mob, who thus pay an involun¬ 
tary tribute to the minister who carried out that 
most valuable arrangement. We might have swelled 
the catalogue of Mr. Peeks services, if we had ex¬ 
tended our vision from those views which he em¬ 
bodied in Acts of Parliament to those which he 
often urged on Parliament. His speeches are rich 
in suggestions of the most varied kind. But it 
was really as the ‘doer/ the agent of other men's 
propositions, that the late Sir Robert Peel rendered 
such inestimable service to his country, by bringing 
to the task of legislation and administration his 
clear and methodical intellect, and his cool, prac¬ 
tical, calculating habits of mind. 

On the nomination of Mr. Canning to the pre¬ 
miership, in April, 1827, Mr. Peel, with other 


56 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


members of the administration of Lord Liverpool, 
declined to serve under him. Mr. Peel’s motives, 
and the imputations to which he was subjected, 
will be treated of subsequently. 

When, after the death of Canning, and the abor¬ 
tive attempt of Lord Goderich to carry on the 
government, the Duke of Wellington occupied 
office as Prime Minister, Mr. Peel resumed his old 
post as Secretary of State for the Home Depart¬ 
ment. 


VII. 


^HE year 1828 commences another era in the 



L life of Sir Robert Peel. Llis change of opinion 
on the currency question had involved some per¬ 
sonal considerations of a perplexing if not of a 
painful character, but it had in no material respect 
altered his relations with his party or with the 
public. He was now about to make a still greater 
sacrifice: he was on the eve of changing, not his 
opinions, but liis course of conduct, on a question 
of far more widely-spread interest, though of in¬ 
ferior importance. Believing that the time was 
come when his duty demanded a change of mea¬ 
sures, he did not hesitate to leap the gulf which he 
knew must afterwards yawn between him and his 
most cherished political associations. The question 
of Catholic emancipation, for nearly half a century 
a subject of regular parliamentary contention, had 
now been transferred to another arena. The claims 
of the Catholics to civil and religious equality had 
been advocated by some of the greatest men this 
country had produced. Burke, Grattan, Curran, 
William Pitt, Fox, Canning, Erskine, Romilly, 


HAD OPPOSED EMANCIPATION. 


57 


Mackintosh, and Brougham; all had appealed in 
vain in their favour against the settled resolve of 
the sovereign, and the ready concurrence of the 
people. At length the strategic genius of O’Connell 
invented a machinery more potent than eloquence, 
or even than the occasional votes of either House 
of Parliament. To a dogged obstruction he opposed 
an active force. The most enlightened men of the 
time were prepared for a change ; but they had no 
sufficient plea, either with the sovereign or with 
the public, to justify a departure from what was 
considered the Protestant form of the constitution. 
O’Connell provided them with this plea. By or¬ 
ganizing the millions of Catholics under a system 
which he could direct with a nod, he rendered the 
functions of government practically impossible. 
The question of emancipation had for many years 
past disorganized the politics of England. Mr. 
Pitt had thrown up office in 1801, because King 
George the Third refused to grant emancipation, 
which had been promised to the Irish people 
as one condition of the repeal of the Union. The 
Whigs, in their turn, were driven from office, after 
a few months’ tenure under Fox and Grenville, 
upon the same question; and every political com¬ 
bination, from that perio'd until 1829, had been 
embarrassed by the difficulty of reconciling political 
allegiance with religious opinions. Thus there was 
every reason on the part of the government of the 
day, for wishing a speedy and effectual solution of 
this great national difficulty. 

Mr. Peel had for many years been looked upon 
as the most able parliamentary champion of the 
system of exclusion; he was the favourite of the 
churchmen, and the chosen representative of the 
University of Oxford. He appeared to be the 


58 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


last man from whom could have been expected 
concessions to the Roman Catholics ; and this feel¬ 
ing save increased vigour to the movements of the 
agitators in Ireland, when they found a Wellington 
administration in power, with Mr. Peel as Home 
Secretary. Mr. O'Connell, with his native shrewd¬ 
ness, seems better to have understood the real 
political character of Mr. Peel. One might sup¬ 
pose that before determining to push his aggres¬ 
sive tactics to an extreme, he had most carefully 
examined every declaration ever made by the 
Home Secretary, whether as chief secretary for 
Ireland, or as an independent member, or in the 
office which he now filled. For if he had done so, 
he would have seen, that however steady had been 
Mr. Peel's opposition from year to year, the prin¬ 
ciple of expediency always lurked under his argu¬ 
ments. He never opposed the emancipation of 
the Catholics from antagonism to their religion, 
but always rested his arguments on political 
grounds. The difficult}^ in this country presenting 
itself to the statesman is, that he cannot easily 
ascertain what really is the public opinion. Some¬ 
times, as upon this Catholic question, the repre¬ 
sentatives are in advance of the constituency; 
at others, as in the case of the corn law question, 
the public have decided upon a change, even while 
Parliament has seemed to be opposed to it. How¬ 
ever urgent were the arguments of the advocates 
of emancipation—however encouraging had been 
occasional divisions in their favour, it was well 
known that public opinion was not equally ad¬ 
vanced in the same direction. It was also noto¬ 
rious that the late king had been always sternly 
opposed to emancipation, and that George the 
Fourth had manifested similar opinions, though 
with less obstinacy. 


CARRIES EMANCIPATION. 


59 


But a few months had elapsed since Mr. Peel 
had refused to serve under Mr. Canning, expressly 
because that statesman was avowedly the advocate 
of emancipation. That he should so soon after 
have himself introduced the measure he then con¬ 
demned, appeared to involve an inexplicable in¬ 
consistency. The vulgar mind took refuge in the 
imputation of treachery and disappointed ambi¬ 
tion ; but Mr. Canning himself absolved Mr. Peel 
from this charge. 

There is but one possible explanation of this 
and other glaring inconsistencies in the career of 
the late Sir Robert Peel. It is that he instinct¬ 
ively adapted himself to the circumstances in 
which he was placed. He lived through a period 
when the rest of Europe was convulsed. He knew 
that public opinion had become strongly impressed 
with the necessity for various changes. On the 
Catholic question, although the English public 
could not be said to show a majority in its favour, 
the attitude assumed by the people of Ireland 
more than counterbalanced this constitutional de¬ 
ficiency ; and we can quite understand how Mr. 
Peel could, in 1827, decline to be a party to a 
measure which then was hopeless of success, and 
yet in 1829 could himself propose that measure— 
not because he thought any better of it than be¬ 
fore, but because necessity compelled him to yield 
to a manifestation of public opinion, however 
spurious he might consider it to be. This is a very 
prosaic mode of dealing with a subject so tempt¬ 
ing in dramatic contrasts as the inconsistencies, 

o 7 

tergiversations, and treacheries to party and per¬ 
sonal friendships, which marked the career of the 
late Sir Robert Peel. It is, however, the only 
mode of satisfactorily treating the subject; more 
especially that experience has shown that other 


60 


THE LATE Silt ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


statesmen, however sincere their convictions, have 
been compelled to resort to the same mode of 
accommodating the limitations assigned in past 
times to the constitution, with the expansion of 
public opinion. That a thing could be done, was 
Sir Robert Peel’s reason why it ought to he done. 
He had long recognised the desirableness of 
changes before admitting their necessity. 

It is not necessary here to repeat the minor in¬ 
cidents of this great crisis in Sir Robert Peel’s 
career, inasmuch as our object is to trace his 
general motives. The return of Mr. O’Connell for 
the county of Clare, although it was known that 
he could not sit, was an evidence of the lengths 
to which the Catholic leaders were prepared to go. 
On the other hand, the Protestants in Ireland, 
exasperated at these proceedings, became highly 
excited, and their mutual enmity almost threat¬ 
ened civil strife. During the parliamentary recess 
following the Clare election, Mr. Dawson, Mr. 
Peel’s brother-in-law, who had been a stanch 
anti-Catholic, announced himself favourable to 
emancipation. Close upon this came the Duke 
of Wellington’s letter to Dr. Curtis, the Catholic 
primate of Ireland, in which he hinted at a set¬ 
tlement ; a letter which was eagerly published. 
It was also favourably commented upon by no 
less a person than the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. 
Matters were not yet ripe, however ; and although 
in their own minds ministers had resolved on the 
change, they deemed it necessary to repudiate 
Lord Anglesey’s indiscretion by recalling him from 
Ireland ; while Mr. Peel preserved a silence as to 
his altered views, although he appeared in public 
during the recess. The explanation of all this 
ambiguity is to be found in the difficulty expe- 


DEFEATED AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY. 61 

rienced by ministers in obtaining the consent of 
the king. It was not until they had actually 
resigned their offices that they received the requi¬ 
site authority. 

‘ An overpowering sense of public duty ’ was 
the plea urged by Mr. Peel to the University of 
Oxford for his change of conduct. It did not 
avail. He honourably resigned his seat, and then 
appealed to his constituents. They elected Sir 
Robert Inglis ; but as he obtained a majority of 
146 only, upon 1364 votes, it is evident that a 
large minority agreed in the prudence of Mr. 
Peel’s proceedings. During the interval between 
this event and Mr. Peel’s return for Westbmy, he 
was virulently attacked by the ultra-Protestant 
party. It is interesting to find him earnestly de¬ 
fended by a gentleman who had then ever been his 
consistent opponent, but who lived to become his 
associate in the government, and his political heir. 
Sir James Graham spoke of him as a really ho¬ 
nest and conscientious man, pleading his sacrifice 
of cherished convictions, public and private, and 
the danger of civil war averted by his manly 
avowal of his change of opinion. In the speech 
with which Mr. Peel, on the fifth of March, intro¬ 
duced the Emancipation Act, he said he had 
resigned the struggle longer to maintain the Ca¬ 
tholic disabilities, believing that there were not 
adequate materials or sufficient instruments for 
their effectual and permanent continuance. He 
yielded, he said, to a moral necessity which he 
coidd not control , unwilling as he was to push 
resistance to a point which might endanger the 
establishments he wished to defend. 

At the same time, Mr. Peel urged a plea more 
in accordance with the established customs of Par- 


62 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

liament, and with the recognised action of the 
constitution. Although the Catholic Association 
really “ carried” the emancipation question, a 
majority of the House of Commons had, in 1828, 
decided in favour of some settlement of the dispute. 
This was on the motion of Sir Francis Burdett. 
The majority, it is true, was very small—only six 
in a house of 538—hut still it was a majority, and, 
as such, could be cited by Mr. Peel as one of the 
reasons for his change of conduct. To have 
referred the altered views of the government to 
out-of-doors intimidation alone, would have been 
seriously to compromise the dignity of Parliament; 
yet it was perfectly well known that the deter¬ 
mined attitude of the Irish Catholics, followed up 
by the return of O’Connell for Clare county, had 
been the real cause of the change. In 1825, a 
considerable majority of the House of Commons 
had decided in favour of the Catholic claims. 
Mr. Peel at once waited on Lord Liverpool, the 
Prime Minister, and intimated that, as the minister 
‘ responsible for the good government of Ireland/ 
he could not carry on the government of that 
country against an adverse House of Commons. 
He intimated his wish to resign ; but Lord Liver¬ 
pool’s reply was that the resignation of the Home 
Secretary would be followed by his own, and that, 
as a necessary consequence, it would break up the 
administration. Mr. Peel had commenced public 
life under Lord Liverpool, and he did not choose 
to be the cause of his retirement from office. For 
that reason he remained, on the understanding 
that there should be an appeal to the country. 
The result was a House of Commons opposed to 
emancipation. When, in 1828, this Parliament 
(by the small majority already mentioned) changed 


HIS CONDUCT TOWARDS CANNING. 


63 


its views on the question, Mr. Peel again expressed 
(to the Duke of Wellington, then Premier,) his 
intention to resign. But by this time there were 
other concurrent reasons for a change of policy ; 
and Mr. Peel told his chief that, as an independent 
member of Parliament, he should do his utmost to 
carry a measure of Catholic emancipation. Ulti¬ 
mately, rather than break up the administration, 
he resolved himself to propose the measure, to 
c take all the personal consequences of originating 
and enforcing, as a minister, the very measure he 
had theretofore opposed/ He would not allow 
himself any merit. ‘The credit/ he exclaimed, 
‘belongs not to me, but to others. It belongs 
to Fox, to Grattan, to Plunkett—to the gentle¬ 
men opposite, (alluding to Mr. Brougham and 
his Whig friends,) and to an illustrious friend 
of mine, who is now no more. By their efforts, 
in spite of my opposition, it has proved vic¬ 
torious/ Yet on the very day before the measure 
was proposed to Parliament by Mr. Peel, he, the 
Duke of Wellington, and Lord Lyndhurst, had 
been compelled to tender their resignations to the 
king, ere they could wring from his convictions 
or his politic reluctance a formal consent to its 
introduction. 

The allusion to ‘ his illustrious friend’ (Mr. Can¬ 
ning) reminds us of the position in which Mr. Peel 
stood towards that statesman. Before that time, 
and after, he was accused of treachery towards 
‘ his illustrious friend/ As lately as the year 1846, 
Mr. Disraeli and Lord George Bentinck, with an 
almost indecent virulence, charged Sir Robert Peel 
with having ‘ hunted Mr. Canning to death/ At 
the time to which we now refer, March 1829, the 
same accusation was hurled at Mr. Peel, with all 


64 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

the bitterness and rancour of party hatred and 
revenge. He, the official proposer of emancipation, 
had but two short vears before resigned office, 
together with all the strength of the ministry, on 
finding that Canning had been named by George 
the Fourth to the premiership. His reason 
assigned in the House of Commons for this con¬ 
duct was, that c he had taken, from the first moment 
of his public life, an active and decided part on a 
great and vital question—that of the extension of 
political privileges to the Roman Catholics. His 
opposition was founded on principle. He thought 
that the continuance of those bars, which pre¬ 
vented the acquisition of political power by the 
Catholics, was necessary for the maintenance of 
the constitution, and the interests of the Esta¬ 
blished Church. Knowing that Mr. Canning was 
pledged to the removal of the Catholic disabilities, 
he could not continue a member of a ministry 
prepared to act on such a policy. 

Upon this passage in Sir Robert Peels history, 
much eloquent nonsense has been written. ‘ Sen¬ 
timentalism' in politics leads astray the judgment. 
Po the historian or the orator, it is tempting to 
leave the dead level of commonplace facts, and 
the routine of party etiquette, and to pursue the 
vision of one statesman ‘hunting another to death/ 
'the partisan may paint in glowing colours the 
horrors or the turpitude of such conduct in the 
man against whose reputation he is pleading; but the 
judge and the jury must look to the prosaic facts. 
If Mr. Canning himself expressly exculpated Mr. 
Peel, in the most emphatic language, we may 
afford to dismiss the personal view of the question. 
In point of fact, personal considerations had but 
little to do with the question. It was a matter of 


DEFENCE OF HIS CONDUCT. 65 

party tactics and public opinion. Mr. Peel liad 
from the first opposed the Catholics, not as reli¬ 
gionists, but as subject to a foreign influence, and 
difficult to restrain if they once obtained political 
power. Subsequent events have demonstrated that 
his view was at least true in fact, however wrong 
the advocates of unlimited freedom may conceive 
it to have been in principle. In 1827, even if Mr. 
Canning could have carried the measure in the 
House of Commons, it is very doubtful whether 
the House of Peers and the Crown would have 
made it law. Mr. Peel and his seceding colleagues 
would then have made only a fruitless sacrifice of 
their character and influence with their party. 
Bigots would have taken their places as Tory lead¬ 
ers, and the question would still have remained 
where it was. But in 1828 and 1829, matters had 
wholly changed. Necessity , the statesman's excuse, 
compelled. The Emancipation Act was yielded to 
something not very far short of force ; and if it 
fell to Mr. Peel to propose it to parliament—in 
spite of his reluctance to cover his character with 
the disgrace of inconsistency—that must be attri¬ 
buted to his great political eminence, and the re¬ 
luctance of his friends to part with his services; 
not to a deliberate treachery towards one who had 
ever been his personal friend, as well as his politi¬ 
cal associate, and who warmly defended him from 
imputations provoked by the sudden and combined 
resignation in 1827. The movements of party 
may in this respect be compared to those of a tor¬ 
toise; that, although the head is flexible and sen¬ 
sitive, the body is slow to be moved. A Canning, 
a Peel, a Stanley, may be enlightened, liberal- 
minded, advanced beyond contemporaries; but 
they cannot change their positions without that 

E 


66 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


dull and heavy mass, that body which is necessary 
to their life while it so clogs and weighs down their 
motions. 


VIII. 

I N his opposition to the Reform Bill, Sir Robert 
Peel was in all probability as sincere a 
earnest; and to this, perhaps, may be r 
the readiness with which his leadership wa 
even by those Tories who were most p 
indignant at what they held to have bee 
giversation on the Catholic question. There were 
personal as well as political reasons why he should 
view with considerable mistrust a threatened change 
in the constitution and character of parliament. 
To the excited apprehensions of the Tory party, 
that change loomed menacingly as a revolution; 
not political only, but in the very laws of parlia¬ 
mentary discussion. They feared nothing less than 
that the House of Commons, to use Mr. Disraeli's 
words, would be ‘degraded into a vestry.' Those 
who had achieved an influence over the House, 
feared that the old courtesies, and the habit of 
veiling 2 3ersorLa ^ties, would be abandoned for 
coarser methods of influencing opinion ; that the 
skilled orator would be obliged to yield the arena 
to the raw demagogue. Sir Robert Peel had for 
many years fulfilled the functions of ‘leader,' as it 
is termed. Laboriously he had trained himself for 
that post, subduing a naturally impulsive charac¬ 
ter, preparing his argumentative weapons for a kind 
of strife in which broad principles were of less fre¬ 
quent use than dialectic finesse, and by a gravity 
of demeanour and general persuasiveness of man- 


SINCERELY OPPOSED TO 1 REFORM. 5 67 

ner, only occasionally varied by passages of elo¬ 
quence as laboriously, though not so successfully, 
imitated from approved models, he had gradually 
surmounted manv difficulties, natural and self- 
created, and had arrived, though with a reputation 
for mediocrity, at a degree of influence over the 
House of Commons, such as had only, in more 
recent years, been yielded to the genius of Canning. 
It is not difficult to conceive that Sir Robert Peel, 
profoundly mistrusting the political prudence of 
the Whigs, and fortified in his general faith by the 
unanimity of his political associates against reform, 
although divided on Catholic emancipation, did 
unconsciously to himself contemplate, with pecu¬ 
liar dread, the demolition of what he had, during 
so many years, built up, and that he should have 
foreseen how useless, against violent gusts of popu¬ 
lar passions, would be all his hardly-learned skill 
in the art of setting his sails or trimming his 
course. Time showed that these apprehensions 
were as groundless as were the political fears of 
his party of the general consequences of a large 
measure of parliamentary reform. Sir Robert 
Peel lived to exercise in the more numerous as¬ 
sembly an influence much greater and more legiti¬ 
mate than that which he had begun to wield in 
the old. 

It is among the speeches made by Sir Robert 
Peel against the Reform Bill that we find the first 
conclusive evidences of that extraordinary grasp, 
elasticity of mind, and fertility in argumentative 
resource, which afterwards rendered him the un¬ 
disputed master of the House of Commons in 
right of his powers as a speaker, and indepen¬ 
dently of the influence he possessed as the leader of 
a great party. During his previous career, he ap- 


68 THE LATE SIR ROBERT TEEL, BART. 

peared always as if dealing with questions in a 
provisional way, postponing the discussion of prin¬ 
ciples, and satisfying his audience with arguments 
of a temporary character, or addressed to matters 
of detail. But now he seemed thoroughly in earnest, 
as though he could not have a doubt or a reserved 
thought upon the question. It is easy to impute 
this comparative earnestness to personal ambition, 
seeking as a means his reinstatement in the leader¬ 
ship of his party; or to political bigotry, actuated 
by a blind faith in aristocracy, and a slavish reve¬ 
rence for the existing remnant of a domination trans¬ 
mitted in one shape or other since the Conquest. 
Neither solution is satisfactory. Personal ambition 
would have prompted the late Sir Robert Peel to 
assume the leadership of a larger and more national 
party, after the golden opinions he won by the 
measure of 1829 ; and as for any superstitious 
respect for aristocracy, it may be urged that the 
peculiar social position of Sir Robert Peel furnishes 
a sufficient answer to the suggestion. He was a 
Conservative from conviction, not by inheritance or 
sympathy; nor, when associating his name with 
measures that were branded as revolutionary, did 
he ever fail to impress on the nation that he 
adopted them in the true spirit of Conservatism, 
as physicians use dangerous remedies in desperate 
cases. 

It comes not within the scope of this biography 
to recall the changeful phases of that contest. Sir 
Robert Peel had never before so shone as a debater. 
If the nomination system could have been saved 
by ingenuity of argument, by exhaustive analysis, 
by exalted eloquence, by predictions of impending 
evil fortified by appalling examples from the past, 
and by the devoted, the desperate earnestness of 


MASTERLY SPEECHES AGAINST ‘REFORM.’ 69 

one notoriously learned in constitutional lore, and 
who had so recently given a glorious proof that he 
was not of a stubborn and obstructive nature ; nay, 
if the decision on that important question had 
rested solely with his audience in the House of 
Commons, uninfluenced by the thunders of the press 
and the attitude of the democracy, it is hard to 
conceive but that he must so far have won the day 
as to have commanded a compromise, and have 
apportioned the newly-created representative power 
more fairly and equally among parties and classes. 
If the sagacious cunning and persuasiveness of a 
Scarlett, the technical knowledge and dexterity of 
a Campbell, the massive reasoning and command¬ 
ing eloquence of a Lyndhurst, had been combined 
in one advocate, he could not have surpassed the 
Tory leader in his efforts to save the old system of 
government. From the broadest and most philo¬ 
sophic treatment, down to the most skilful forensic 
handling of detail, his advocacy presented the most 
masterly grasp and the most wondrous versatility. 
To appreciate such efforts, it is not necessary to 
sympathize with their object. Opponents and ad¬ 
herents alike admired. Theretofore Sir Robert Peel 
had rather seemed the master of plausible fallacy, 
of logical dexterity, of convenient expediency. Now 
he came forth as a champion of what he at least 
converted into a great constitutional cause, and 
astonished all by his combined courage and plas¬ 
ticity. The secret lay in the fact that he was now 
really, personally in earnest. But nothing could 
withstand the popular torrent. During the debates, 
and while the fate of the measure hung on the 
reluctance of the king and the premier to coerce 
the House of Lords into adopting it, the attempt 
was made to effect a modification or compromise. 


70 TIIE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

Those who had refused all, now thought that the 
public would be satisfied with the concession of a 
part. Earl Grey and Lord Brougham having at 
length resolved on the desperate alternative of 
creating peers, and the king having then refused 
Ins assent, the ministers resigned. It was now that 
Sir Robert Peel first received brevet rank as Prime 
Minister. 

The king"had sent for Lord Lyndhurst, to com¬ 
municate his wishes to the Duke of Wellington 
and Sir Robert Peel, to the effect that he was 
desirous that they should form an administration 
on the basis of an extensive measure of reform. 
The Duke, true to his military instincts, imme¬ 
diately desired to obey his sovereign's wishes; but 
Sir Robert Peel, who better understood the real 
perils of the crisis, declined to accept the premier¬ 
ship, in the belief that it was impossible to modify 
the Whig measure, or on the other hand to propose 
a new one that would be acceptable to the excited 
appetite of the people. Sir Robert Peel in this 
respect evinced the sagacity which now began to 
distinguish his career. He was earnestly opposed 
to the scheme of parliamentary reform, as being at 
once rash, sweeping, and incomplete; he foresaw 
too, that the Whigs would soon meet the fate of 
all popular idols; and he believed that he was better 
serving the interests of his party by waiting until 
a period when concessions from them would be ac¬ 
cepted as a boon, not submitted to under the 
influence of popular violence. Sir Robert Peel's 
counsels prevailed over the reluctance of the king, 
and the result w r as, v r e need not say, that the 
Whigs were left to complete the work they had 
begun. Sir Robert Peel, however, w^as not therefore 
idle ; his tactics resolved themselves into a scheme 


INAUGURATES 'CONSERVATISM/ 


71 


for robbing the Whigs of the fruits for which they 
had sacrificed on the altar of democracy. Having 
declined the formal encounter, he now applied 
himself to the task of beating his adversaries in 
detail. But the forces he had at command for 
this work were wholly inadequate. The Tory party 
was utterly destroyed under the influence of the 
violent popidar excitement, which had returned an 
overwhelming majority for the Whigs. The popu¬ 
larity, too, of the Grey administration was so 
enormous as to defy all attempts to shake it, until 
errors were committed, or internal dissensions 
arose. The resolute manner in which Sir Robert 
Peel had resisted the reform agitation, had com¬ 
pletely restored to him the confidence of the Tories; 
but to counterbalance this advantage he had to 
deplore the loss of numbers. He first applied 
himself to the reconstruction of his party, as fur¬ 
nishing him with the troops for the coming cam¬ 
paign. At first he could not make much impres¬ 
sion ; but gradually the Whigs themselves supplied 
him with the means and the opportunity. The 
Radical followers of Earl Grey expected to see the 
same fever-heat of reformation kept up; while the 
aristocratic portion of the party thought that already 
too much had been done. Sir Robert Peel skil¬ 
fully availed himself of the opportunity furnished 
by this schism ; although, for a considerable time, 
he was unable to do more than remind the public 
that the Tory party was still in existence, though 
sorely diminished in numbers and strength. Sir 
Robert Peel commenced his campaign of opposition 
with a measure of great prudence. The name of 
' Tory' had become odious in the popular ear; he 
substituted for it a more significant and elastic, and 
a less offensive designation—that of ‘ Conservative 


72 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

which the party led by Sir Robert Peel still con¬ 
tinued to preserve; although when Lord George 
Bentinck, Lord Stanley, and Mr. Disraeli seceded 
from the banner of their former chieftain, they 
ostentatiously resumed the old party name of 
‘ Tory/ Sir Robert Peeks tactics Avere necessarily 
rather of a defensive than of an offensive character, 
his object being to let the Whigs ‘wear out their 
welcome/ and at the same time to exhibit his own 
party before the public in a less unamiable light 
than that which had been for a long time assigned 
to them. In the mean while, changes had taken 
place, both in the personnel and the popularity of 
the Whig ministry. The resignation of the present 
Lord Derby, of the Duke of Richmond, Sir James 
Graham, and the Earl of Ripon, and subsequently 
of Earl Grey himself, deprived the ministry of 
much strength and prestige; and the time did not 
appear to have arrived at which they could with 
any safety seek support from the ultras of their 
party. At last, the death of Earl Spencer having 
furnished the king with a pretext for dismissing 
the ministry, his majesty, on the advice of the 
Duke of Wellington, commanded Sir Robert 
Peel back from Rome, whither he had gone on 
a tour of recreation. Pending his return, the 
Duke of Wellington, almost single-handed, car¬ 
ried on. the government. At length, in the early 
part of December, 1831, Sir Robert Peel arrived 
in London, accepted office as Prime Minister, and 
immediately constructed an administration. 

IX. 

W E have now reached another great epoch in 
the mental history of Sir Robert Peel, He 


HIS FIRST ADMINISTRATION. 


73 


had arrived at the highest eminence attainable by 
a subject in this country ; and in order to attain 
that eminence he had made no flagrant sacrifice of 
principle. Still, as the Tory party was under the 
ban of public disapprobation, and the Whigs still 
commanded a numerical majority in the House of 
Commons, the country looked with no small curi¬ 
osity and doubt on an attempt by a Tory minister 
to carry on the government in the face of the 
notorious desire of the public for reform. 

The Tamworth manifesto partly set at rest these 
doubts and speculations. That was a state paper 
of no ordinary significance. It might be said to 
have been the first real fruit of the Reform Bill; 
because it for the first time exhibited the minister 
of the day taking the people into his confidence 
and councils. Sir Robert Peel by that manifesto 
accepted the Reform Bill as a fait accompli, but 
denied that there was for the Whigs any especial 
and exclusive mission to govern the empire. He 
proclaimed as the great principle of the new govern¬ 
ment the maintenance of institutions and the 
reformation of abuses ; by which it was understood 
that he objected to further organic reform, but 
approved of reform in detail. Looking back at 
these events with the advantage of subsequent 
experience, we do not so readily perceive the im¬ 
portance then attached to this movement of Sir 
Robert Peel. Yet it was signally sagacious and well- 
timed, holding the balance between the retro-ac¬ 
tive tendencies of the majority of his own supporters, 
and the mad passion for change with which the 
events (foreign as well as domestic) of the last four 
years had inspired the people. Without doubt it 
removed from the newly baptised Conservative 
party a heavyweight of popular prejudice, and ren- 


71 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

tiered it buoyant in the public hope. Upon Sir 
Robert Peel’s political adversaries it fell like a bolt 
from heaven ; as they had inferred from the nega¬ 
tive opposition offered to them, that the new Tory 
ministry would be rampant on the old Tory preju¬ 
dices. A palace intrigue had ejected Lord Mel¬ 
bourne ; but the Tamworth manifesto converted it 
into a peaceful social revolution, and lent to the 
new administration a moral sanction even greater 
than that arrogated by the late government, inas¬ 
much as it presented the aristocracy in the amiable 
character of voluntary conceders to the wishes of 
the public. In studying the character of Sir Robert 
Peel, we must never forget that this was entirely 
his own act ; and that although in carrying Catholic 
Emancipation and repeal of the Corn Laws, he 
enacted a more brilliant and distinguished part, in 
his government of 1831 he had the merit of taking 
the initiative. 

In his personal demeanour, this event worked a 
miraculous change. It is one test of greatness to 
grow with the occasion. Sir Robert Peel found 
himself in face of immense difficulties. A disso¬ 
lution of parliament proved that the Whig majority, 
although diminished was not destroyed; and the 
ejected chiefs, transported with mortification and 
rage, had resolved to spare no efforts that could 
once more rally round them their estranged sup¬ 
porters, and carry Downing-street with a coup de 
main. The public at large were not slow to reco¬ 
gnise in the position of Sir Robert Peel a parallel 
with that of Pitt when called to power by George III., 
and opposed to a coalition. Pitt himself was not 
more impressively dignified under those difficulties, 
than was Sir Robert Peel, now that he had to 
combat the new coalition of the Whigs, Radicals, 


HIS GREAT POSITION IN 1831-5. 


75 


and the Irish Roman-catholic members, as yet too 
wanting the aid which might be expected from 
Lord Stanley and Sir James Graham. It was now 
that the full proportions of the statesman's mind 
developed themselves. Once before he had asto¬ 
nished mankind by an exhibition of moral courage, 
which party passions prevented their fully appre¬ 
ciating ; but now he was no longer bound to the 
degrading necessity of pleading with his own 
followers that he was externally coerced. All the 
measures he introduced, although they fell short of 
the exaggerated demands of demagogues, bore the 
stamp of a practical liberalism ; while his speeches, 
in their loftiness of tone and self-sustaining inde¬ 
pendence, foreshadowed that mastery of the public 
mind which, from 1811 to 1816, he converted into 
a dictatorship. Even the parliamentary tactics of 
his government were a practical appeal from the 
old laws of party warfare, an admission that some¬ 
thing more than mere numbers must enter into the 
calculations of him who could work the newlv 
organized machinery of the constitution. Para¬ 
doxical though it may seem, even while refusing to 
resign on adverse votes, on mere questions of form, 
he was really asserting the representative princi¬ 
ple ; because he regarded those votes as the result 
of factious combinations formed under the influence 
of temporary excitement, and he declined to reco¬ 
gnise them as involving his resignation, until they 
were expressed on some great question of principle 
which must have deeply occupied the thoughts of 
the members of the House of Commons. Some¬ 
thing, too, was due to his sovereign, who in the 
exercise of his prerogative, had summarily dismissed 
the ministry wielding a majority in the House of 
Commons; nor was the new premier unmindful 


76 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


of the interests of his own party, which demanded 
that the Tamworth manifesto should be placed on 
record in specific parliamentary propositions. The 
period from February to April, 1835, when Sir 
Robert Peel at last succumbed before the coalition, 
must be regarded as the most remarkable of his 
life; not because in 1846 he did not occupy a 
position and enact a character far more eminent 
and illustrious in the eyes of mankind, but because 
it was now that his character first became stamped 
with individuality, and he rose from being a mouth¬ 
piece of his party to be really their leader and their 
lawgiver. 

Once more in opposition Sir Robert Peel recom¬ 
menced his opposition tactics. He had exposed 
enough of the spirit of the new dispensation of 
Toryism, to leave on the public mind a favourable 
impression, while he had the advantage of appeal¬ 
ing to the Protestant spirit of the country against 
the alliance of the Whigs with O'Connell and the 
Irish Catholics. Those who are prepared to con¬ 
demn Sir Robert Peel, because, having once made use 
of the Protestant party he afterwards made conces¬ 
sions to the Catholics in Ireland greater than the 
Whigs had proposed, had better abandon the study 
of contemporary history and shut themselves up with 
their fixed ideas. Sir Robert Peel, in the struggle to 
attain power, did what almost every statesman has 
done before and since: he made use of the wea¬ 
pons and powers which he found ready to his hand, 
and he did not think that when installed in office 
he was bound to reproduce in acts of parliament 
all the exaggerated expectations either of his friends 
or of his opponents. These are questions about 
which ideologists and sentimental politicians have 
sermonized in all times, and about which they will 


HIS OPPOSITION CAMPAIGN. 


77 


still continue to distract their judgment. The cur¬ 
rent of events runs on in spite of them, and strong- 
minded men will still continue to carry out their 
purposes regardless of past professions, whenever it 
happens that their personal ambition marches with 
the wishes of the public, or can be made instru¬ 
mental to the public good. Without entering into 
the details of the parliamentary campaign between 
April, 1835, and August, 1841, we may generally 
characterize the tactics of Sir Robert Peel as having 
exhibited the most consummate dexterity. He 
gradually disembarrassed himself of every tie that 
could render him dependent on his own party, 
while at the same time he steadily declined to com¬ 
promise himself with the democratic section of his 
opponents. His celebrated declaration, that he con¬ 
sidered himself as the state physician, who could 
not be called upon to advise without his fee, aptly 
described his position. Actively assailant to the 
extent necessary to harass and disorganize the 
government, sufficiently enthusiastic on behalf of 
the old objects of Tory idolatry to keep up the cou¬ 
rage of his supporters, he maintained a prudent 
silence as to the measures he would propose if cir¬ 
cumstances placed him in power. His greatest 
difficulty was to restrain the eagerness of his own 
followers, constantly tempted by the opportunities 
thrown in their way by the cunning or the incapa¬ 
city of the Whigs. He had not only to refuse the 
means of obtaining power, but actually to invent 
pretexts for declining office when forced upon him. 
The result of this combination of abstinence and 
adroit assault was, that when at last he had wor¬ 
ried the Whigs to the last stage of attenuation, and 
was able to walk over the defunct party into office, 
he stood perfectly unpledged to any specific prin- 


78 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


ciple or measure, but had enveloped his plans in 
such vague generalities as to leave him compara¬ 
tively a free agent. How far this line of conduct 
was consistent with public morality it is not neces¬ 
sary here to determine, except so far as emphatically 
to declare that the use made by Sir Robert Peel of 
power when attained was in accordance with that 
highest morality of statesmen which binds them 
above all things to consider what is most for the 
public good. Sir Robert Peel's supporters, or many 
of them, supposed that he was coming into office ex¬ 
pressly to maintain the Corn Laws, to restrain the 
Irish Catholics, and generally to oppose the advanc¬ 
ing tide of democracy. Sir Robert Peel himself 
did not condescend, except to a few intimates and 
equals, to explain in what direction his plans tended. 
Even when he dissolved parliament and found him¬ 
self reinforced by a Conservative majority of ninety- 
one, he stood unfettered and unpledged. The 
Whigs had utterly frittered away the immense 
favour with which, ten years before, the public had 
regarded them : Sir Robert Peel was at that time 
accepted, not so much because the public felt confi¬ 
dence in him, as that they did not feel confidence in 
anyone else. When, after an interval of angry recri¬ 
mination instigated by the Whigs, the new minister 
at length came to parliament with his financial 
scheme, if his own supporters were astonished at so 
sudden a change, and his party opponents were 
enraged at seeing their favourite plans taken up by 
their political antagonist, the public and the press 
were not slow to perceive that at last the helm was 
grasped by a master, one who had the courage to 
assert himself in the face of mankind, and to use 
for the benefit of the whole nation the trust origin¬ 
ally reposed in him for the benefit of a section. 


HIS SECOND ADMINISTRATION. 


79 


X. 

O F tlie position of Sir Robert Peel during the 
first years of his second administration, the 
following passage, published at the time by the 
present writer, affords a fair picture— 

‘ Sir Robert Peel is alone among living statesmen. 
A studied mystery enwraps his purposes : a cold 
reserve repels political friendship. His contempo¬ 
raries feel his power : the later annals of his country 
bear witness to the active influence of his mind. 
Yet no one speaks well of him ; he is even charged 
with not having a friend. Anathemas have been 
hurled at him by his party, which would have 
withered a weaker moral nature, or crushed a 
less pliable one. The praise he gets comes from 
his former enemies, and even that is diminutive. 
The Tories fear him ; the Whigs hate him; the 
Chartists affect to despise him. Those who look 
back, and regret the past, accuse him of treachery. 
Those who look forward and contemplate the future, 
—the men who would govern empires by theories 
revived from the obsolete, or framed upon the pos¬ 
sible,—ridicule his pretensions to practical states¬ 
manship, his bit-by-bit legislation. They say he 
is governing without a principle of government. 
Insincerity and inconsistency are the mildest forms 
of his alleged political vices. He has offended the 
unforgiving, and served the ungrateful. 

‘ In imputing to him mediocrity, all have agreed. 
It is a comfortable doctrine, consolatory at once 
to their self-love and enmity. Perhaps he smiles 
at it, and settles himself in his seat of power. 
Mediocrity ! Does mediocrity raise itself to the 
highest station, in defiance of social obstacles, 


SO THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

leaving men of £ genius' dwarfed in the distance 
or toiling at the base ? Does mediocrity grapple 
with rampant and powerful prejudices, subduing 
them to the rein and whip ? Does it convert the 
servant into the master ? In the mere art of mak¬ 
ing brilliant speeches, Sir Robert Peel may show 
mediocrity, when compared with a Lyndhurst, a 
Macaulay, or ar Sheil. His tone may be too prac¬ 
tical. An abstinent and pre-determined caution 
in the assertion of principles will always detract 
from mental power. When Sir Robert Peel does 
attempt to illustrate foregone conclusions by the 
flowers of rhetoric, he fails. Such practices, though 
adopted occasionally as a formal duty, are uncon¬ 
genial with the character of his mind, which rather 
exhibits itself in a course of action. He is to be 
studied in his whole career; not condemned upon 
personal peculiarities, defective oratory, or isolated 
instances of inconsistency. With statesmen results 
are the test of genius. If the world be not yet 
prepared to admit that Sir Robert Peel is a great 
man, at least they must allow that he has made for 
himself a great position. 

‘ His bearing in the House of Commons implies 
a consciousness that the power he wields is based 
on its opinion. He seems self-assured that he is of 
importance there. As he enters at the green door 
below the bar, and the members, of whatever party, 
instinctively make way for him, he looks at no one, 
recognises no one, receives salutation from no one. 
He seems neither to know nor to be known by any 
member present. He moves straight on, gliding 
slowly along the floor like something unreal, with 
steps half-sidling, on what O'Connell called his 
two left legs, as though he were preparing for the 
stately minuet. The broad, full frame-—tending, 


HIS PORTRAIT IN 1841-1846. 


81 


of late, to portliness, and looking still more full in 
the ample vest and long broad-skirted frock-coat 
—seems almost a weight to its supports : an appre¬ 
hensive man might fear that the sidling step would 
weaken into a slight stagger. An air of formality 
and pre-occupation is on the face. The counte¬ 
nance, though handsome and of fine mould, looks 
broad, flat,—not open—and traitless. An habitual 
suppression of feeling has left it without marked 
features. A complacent gravity alternates with an 
austere coldness. Or, the brows are elevated with 
a haughtiness not natural to him ; and a strange 
contradictory smile, sometimes nearly humorous, 
sometimes almost self-contemning, plays with a 
slight convulsive motion, as though not quite under 
control. It seems to say: c We are all going- 
through a solemn farce, and I am the chief actor/ 
Anon ; and a rigid, cold, self-absorbed, almost dis¬ 
dainful expression has seized on the face : the head 
(eyebrows still arched) cranes forward from the 
tight cravat, and moves twice or thrice with a con¬ 
vulsive twitch—as though a strong internal master¬ 
ing effort had been made to preserve the grandiose 
demeanour proper in a man knowing himself the 
target of five hundred pairs of eyes. Arrived at 
his place, he exchanges no recognitions with his 
immediate colleagues, but sits apart,—his body 
prone upon his crossed legs, his hat down upon his 
ears, his face stretched forward in anxious atten¬ 
tion or agitated with nervous twitches, while his 
right hand, the two fore-fingers forked, strokes 
slowly down the nose, or plays unconsciously with 
his seals, or the keys of his despatch-boxes, which 
lie before him on the speaker’s table. 

c Sir Kobert Peel, in his manly speech on quitting 
office in 1835—after a brief ministerial career, in 

F 


82 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


which he first evinced that self-reliance which has 
since proved his distinguishing trait as a statesman 
—said he wished ‘ to stand well' with the House 
of Commons. That he has taken pains to do so, 
shows his sense of the importance of popular 
approbation. Statesmen, he sees, must now rule 
through opinion, not, as before, through intrigue. 
He does rule; but as no man ever ruled yet in 
the Commons House of Parliament. His is not a 
moral influence, like that of Chatham, or of his 
gifted son, or Charles James Fox. He is not 
beloved, esteemed, followed with admiration. His 
power is solitary, self-created, self-emanating. 
Napoleon-like, he chose to place the crown on his 
own head. He is a creature of political isolation. 
He sees in the House an aggregate meeting of 
rival interests, always in a state of suppressed 
hostility on principles, or of open conflict on 
details. In their mutual jealousy, and consequent 
weakness, lies his power. He holds the balance. 
He rules them by their hopes, their fears, their 
interests; not by their affections or their con¬ 
fidence. But with what exquisite art he conceals 
his mode of managing them ! Knowing that 
direct dictation would provoke resistance, or humi¬ 
liating appeals to sordid motives afford a plea for 
virtuous indignation, how artfully he covers the 
whole with a varnish of public spirit! At the 
very moment when appealing the most earnestly 
to principles, do we find him the most slily ad¬ 
dressing himself to interest. Every section, every 
opinion, and all their possible combinations, are 
mapped in his mind. Nothing that can win a 
cheer from any party is rejected. Their separate 
delight blinds them to the inconsistency of contrary 
propositions. Under pretence of stopping a gap 


HIS ARTS OF MANAGEMENT. 


83 


in the finances, he effected a change of principle 
from indirect to direct taxation. To reconcile the 
middle classes to an Income Tax, he let in foreign 
produce, and promised them cheap provisions. 
Turning at the same time round to the landed 
interest, he said: ‘Never mind what I say to 
them: no produce to any amount will come in 
under the tariff.’ In the end, he got increased 
revenue from both classes; and smiled at the 
short-sighted jealousies of those whom he had thus 
led to do what he believed to be the best for the 
country. By breaking up the land-marks of party, 
he does all the work of a coalition. Mark his 
paternal style and accent ! You think he’s every¬ 
body’s friend—that he is straining to do his ut¬ 
most for all. ‘ Only wait patiently, and trust to 
me,’ he says. They suspect his sincerity, yet are 
led away by his speciousness. His voice, how . 
bland, flexible, obedient to the faintest shades of 
expression ! His tone and bearing, how candid, 
nay, innocent of all political guile! His de¬ 
meanour, how inspiring, familiar! How dexte¬ 
rously he lets fall his crumbs of comfort to the 
manufacturers, or gives the country gentleman a 
hint that he will not be coerced ! Half the secret 
of his influence, whether in or out of office, lies 
in the deliberate self-possession with which he 
distils his policy—proposing no measure or plan of 
action till time is ripe, till, by a mixture of con¬ 
viction, cajolery, and threat, he is able to carry 
it by arraying one interest against another. 
Having gained his point, how soon he wraps him¬ 
self again in his coldness and reserve, intimating 
haughtily that the measure was his , and that he 
carried it; and how readily the House—tools he 
has been adroitly preparing for the work during 


84 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


many years—submit to be so served again ! They 
wait in dark fear on this man, so close and myste¬ 
rious in preparing his plans, so pliable and pains¬ 
taking in carrying them out. He lias conquered 
party by party broken down the prejudices 
of men through their interests—lessened party 
spirit by narrowing its sphere of action. His own 
followers, whom he has lured or coerced into con¬ 
cession, or the opposite party, who had expected 
more, turn round after his measures are passed, 
and abuse him. He only smiles. It is too late. 
Sir Robert Peel never looks back. You might 
think he had forgotten there were ever such things 
is emancipation, anti-reform struggles, or old 
bryism. Retrospection is no principle of his 
Hey. He deals with the present, and makes 
\nost of it. As to the morality of his system, 

, less said the better. The political Furies are 
ai lys at hand to claim their victim. But the 
got. 1 workman does his best with his tools. A 
Metternich carries vast schemes of policy by 
despotic power. A constitutional minister thinks 
through a representative assembly: his wisest 
plans may be wrecked by the meanest minds. 

‘As a statesman, Sir Robert Peel seems to iden¬ 
tify himself with the middle classes. He did not 
exactly give them power; but he seems prepared 
to extend it. Conscious of the humbleness of his 
origin, he often refers to it with an affected humi¬ 
lity—it may be, with a manly pride. One might 
almost suspect him of a settled plan to exalt his 
order. Himself the son of a manufacturer, and 
deriving all his social consequence from commerce, 
it might have been expected that when he entered 
parliament it would have been as the advocate 


THE MINISTER OF THE NATION. 


85 


of those principles which, whether from natural 
affinity or political accident, have always found 
favour with the commercial and trading classes. If 
that would have been his natural position, it fol¬ 
lows that his championship of High Church and 
aristocratic principles was an anomaly. That an 
offshoot of the middle, almost of the plebeian, class 
should so soon eclipse all his patrician rivals in the 
struggle for political pre-eminence, might on the 
other hand be taken as a fact pregnant with omi¬ 
nous warning to the aristocracy, as significant of 
decay, and of the coming downfal of their exclusive 
ascendancy. Be that as it may, it is a remarkable 
fact, that no sooner has this representative of the 
active industry and busy intellect of the country 
obtained power from time to time, than he has 
used it to work out objects totally opposed to those 
of the men by whom it was intrusted to him. 
Witness emancipation; witness his free-trade 
measures, and liberal political declarations. The 
whole of his conduct since his return to power in 
1810 has been an appeal, an ostentatious appeal, 
from the privileged classes to the country at large. 
The approbation of the middle classes he has pro¬ 
claimed to be the fit reward of a wise statesman. 
To the middle classes he looks for support in his 
struggles against the classes of which he is the 
political, though not the social head. And who are 
those most likely to be benefited by his measures 
past and prospective ? The middle classes. He is 
himself a sort of representative of those classes. 
Fancy might extend the likeness to dress and man¬ 
ners. His loose, long frock-coat, odd, cylindrical, 
small-rimmed hat, and buff or drab nether gar¬ 
ments, while quite in keeping with the man, were 


86 THE LATE SIB BOBEBT PEEL, BABT. 


anything but in character with the garb of an aris¬ 
tocrat. His awkward and ungainly attitude as an 
equestrian does not bespeak blood or training. 

‘ Reluctantly followed by the aristocracy, he 
seems too deeply to know he is not one of the 
order. His manners affect the aristocratic, but fall 
short of the easy. His courtesy is constrained, his 
deference formal, his affability overdone. See him 
in full evening dress !—his tight, choking cravat, 
his coat unrecognised in Sartorian art, his black 
flesh-fitted nether garments tapering in shapeless 
diminution to the ancles ! How stiff his ease ! 
He bows where he should bend. He seems con¬ 
scious that the senate, not the ball-room, is his 
proper sphere. His homage to royalty is the obei¬ 
sance of all that is stilted and constrained. 

‘ If Sir Robert Peel stands alone, it is from 
choice. He can the better work out his views. He 
has known the fetters of party friendship, the viru¬ 
lence of its hatred. To isolate himself may be his 
revenge. This time he will not be called a traitor, 
yet have his own will. For this statesman, so 
abused, so charged with mediocrity, weakness, in¬ 
sincerity, has really a strong character and fixed 
purposes. Read his speech on moving the Eman¬ 
cipation Bill: refer to his short administration in 
1834-5, when he rose to the height of moral great¬ 
ness ; read his noble answer to Cobbett's brutal 
attack, and two or three declarations he made 
after resuming office in 1840 : you will find proof 
enough that there is a strong undercurrent of deep 
feeling and moral energy. What a fresh academi¬ 
cal relish there was on his address to the Glasgow 
students! 

‘ Whenever he can escape from the degrading 
necessities of his temporizing policy ; when he can 


HIS CHARACTER AS A STATESMAN. 87 

speak, with, modest pride, of himself, his origin, his 
purposes, his hopes ; when the higher aim-*—histo¬ 
rical renown—displaces for the hour the smaller 
hut more immediate stake—temporary opinion and 
power—upon which the ultimate triumph unfortu¬ 
nately rests ; then, as in the speeches just referred 
to, you see that there is fire smouldering beneath 
—that there is a moral elevation you did not sus¬ 
pect—that his aspirations tend to a kind of great¬ 
ness, not at all compatible with the popular notions 
of his character. For his fixed purposes, look to 
his conduct on the currency question, and to those 
measures in connexion with the revenue and tax¬ 
ation of the country, and also with reference to 
Ireland, which have virtually changed the state of 
parties. He has his ambition too. An honourable 
fame—he has proudly declared it—is his hoped-for 
reward. A page in history more fascinates his 
imagination than the glitter of a coronet. 

‘ Since 1840 his public life has been a series of 
progressive developments. He began by laying 
down the principle, that his duty to the public was 
superior to any obligations to his party. He reco¬ 
gnised the nation as his only master. To the nation, 
in the aggregate, he is proudly humble; to all 
sections of it, humbly proud. He has been gradu¬ 
ally making his peace with the people of England. 
He has used craft and dissimulation to cloak great 
designs: his disinterestedness must be the gua¬ 
rantee of his good faith. If he has been a traitor 
to his party, he has made amends to his sovereign 
and his country. After having trained the House 
of Commons, by every refinement of political and 
parliamentary art, to be the obedient slaves of his 
will, he has compelled the greatest men of his day 
_the greatest warrior and the most distinguished 


88 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

lawyer of the age—to abandon their most cherished 
convictions, and to take from him the laws of their 
mind. Thus it is that he has individualized him¬ 
self and consolidated his power. He can stand up 
in the face of parliament, and defy all the viler in¬ 
sinuations of party spirit,—the petty opprobrium 
heaped on inconsistency. The,proof of his rectitude, 
of his possession of that wisdom and that higher 
morality which supersede the minor and temporary 
obligation of consistency, lies in the necessity his 
countrymen are under of adopting his policy ; and 
of calling on him alone, of all his contemporaries, 
to carry it out. He is able to stand up in his place 
in parliament, and declare that he desires not to be 
minister—that he even prays to be relieved from 
office. But the country calls loudly on him to re¬ 
main. He may be hated, despised, undervalued ; 
but he is wanted. For near a century, no minis¬ 
ter has held so proudly independent a position. 
Abroad, a policy of manly conciliation ; at home, an 
easy victory over party obstructions to the attain¬ 
ment of the public good; an united government 
md a prosperous people; attest the ascendancy of 
his powerful and well-regulated mind. 

‘ Party politics ought not to prevent a just estimate 
of personal character. Sir Robert Peel has been 
singularly unfortunate in the opinions held of him. 
He is certainly the man of his age. Posterity 
alone will judge how far the events of the time and 
the state of parties have necessitated his temporiz¬ 
ing course, or how far they have themselves been 
produced by his cautious spirit. An able man he 
now is: a great man he never can become till 
finally released from political restrictions ; yet much 
of his claim to greatness will rest on the manner in 
which he has worked out his will in spite of those 
restrictions/ 


BEPEAL OF THE CORN LAWS. 


89 


XI. 

^HE second administration of Sir Robert Peel 
J- will always be memorable as having inaugu¬ 
rated a new commercial and financial system for 
the British empire, and as having pointed the way 
to the most effectual mode of conciliating the Irish 
Catholics. He commenced, but was not spared to 
complete, the former measure; but he sealed the 
fate of the old commercial system when he repealed 
the corn laws. The character of his mind was 
eminently displayed in the means to which he 
resorted in order to attain that object. Some con¬ 
tinue to assert that he was forced into this step by 
Richard Cobden, as he had been compelled to 
grant Catholic emancipation by O’Connell. Cob¬ 
den, perhaps, would be the last to lay claim to such 
an honour, although it was so generously conceded 
to him by the deceased statesman; because it is 
notorious that the leaders of the League had not 
expected so ample and final a concession as that 
which was accorded to them by the Conservative 
chief. It is difficult to say which were the most 
astonished at the suddenness and scope of that 
resolve—the Tory landed aristocracy, or the mamv 
facturing magnates. But Sir Robert Peel had, if 
the instance of Catholic Emancipation and t] e 
currency, shown that what he did he would/ 
with all his strength; and it was in this spi^ '. yat 
he resolved on utterly abandoning the tajg 
rather than effect any compromise. Rj^pJotives 
would appear to have been pre-eminen^/ftiose of 
a statesman. His sagacity taught him that there 
might, sooner or later, be expected another upheav¬ 
ing of the democratic fire on the Continent; and 


90 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


experience proved that such movements always 
meet a response here at home, in which the aristo¬ 
cracy are losers of power or prestige. Concur¬ 
rently came the sad intelligence that a failure might 
be anticipated in the staple food of the Irish people. 
In face of his strong parliamentary majority was 
the Anti-Corn-Law League, menacing not merely 
a fierce agitation against the aristocracy, but also a 
new mode of creating fictitious votes in counties, 
which would still more effectually sap the foun¬ 
dations on which power had hitherto rested. Since 
183d, Sir Robert Peel had learned to think , for 
himself, and to command; during this his second 
administration, he had been so popular and so 
powerful, that he almost felt himself to be what 
he appeared to all others—the dictator of the em¬ 
pire. It was then that he resolved to avail himself 
of those concurrent inducements, and to anticipate, 
by a bold initiative, an inevitable concession. An 
anecdote, preserved by M. John Lemoinne, of the 
Journal des Debats (a gentleman who, to great 
journalistic power, adds a singularly complete know¬ 
ledge of English politics), stamps with authority 
this view of Sir Robert Peel's motives:— 4 The 
venerable Hume,' writes M. Lemoinne, ‘ the senior 
of the House of Commons, relates that the news of 
the French revolution of February reached the 
House during a sitting. He seated himself near 
ariir Robert Peel, no longer minister; and, talking 
be the events at Paris, Sir Robert observed, ‘ This 
coicou from the attempt to govern with a numerical 
majosecr in a legislative assembly without consult¬ 
ing the $ ablic voice,' and pointing to the Protec¬ 
tionist benches—a party who had punished his 
courage and perception by ostracism—he added, 
‘ and yet that is what they wished me to do, but I 


RESIGNS OFFICE. 


91 


was firm in refusing/ He was firm, and saved his 
country from that violent crisis which a few years 
later upset Europe. He had scented the revolu¬ 
tion, and it has been universally acknowledged 
since that England passed tranquilly through the 
year 1848, solely because it had complied with the 
popular wants of commercial reform/ 

This great act accomplished, Sir Robert Peel felt 
that his mission was ended ; although he was, per¬ 
haps, during three subsequent years, the only man 
in the empire who did not contemplate, as a matter 
of course, his restoration to office with absolute 
liberty of action. It is not here necessary to enter 
in detail into the active causes of the downfal of 
Sir Robert Peel; the long-growing discontent of the 
landed aristocracy, the sarcastic attacks of Mr. 
Disraeli, the impatience natural to the people of a 
free country when any one man has for a long time 
exercised absolute sway. Sir Robert Peel, with the 
same foresight and firmness that led to his offence, 
also prepared his atonement. He did not wait to 
be manoeuvred out of office. He wished to retire 
with dignity, yet on some question whereon defeat 
would not imply disgrace. The Coercion Act sup¬ 
plied the opportunity; the ambition of the Whigs 
being furthered by the greedy revenge of the 
estranged Tories, oblivious of their treason to the 
cause of social order. In his retiring speech, Sir 
Robert Peel concentrated all the dignity of his la* r 
years. If all men felt that in a political sens**. , i 
retribution was just, on the other hand his/ ,Ae- 
ment was regarded as only temporary, ra ^ j as a 
sacrifice to the decencies than a punish /tent—a 
suspension from his dictatorial functions, rather than 
a final dismissal. The moral feeling of the nation 
was on his side, and, in respect for his services and 


92 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

sacrifices, they overlooked a something very much 
like arrogance in his parting words, as well as one 
essential fault in his summary of his own deserts, 
when he claimed credit for having cheapened the 
food of the people. As part of a great fiscal change, 
this was a great gain ; but in exempting a large 
mass of persons from taxation, and holding cheap¬ 
ness and freedom from fiscal burthens out as a boon 
for others, he was in fact creating a pauper class— 
purchasing the safety of the aristocracy by pecu¬ 
niary sacrifices, and destroying the strongest right 
and inducement to the poorer classes to share in 
the weight of state affairs. 

Out of office, Sir Robert Peel exercised a moral 
influence on the political world scarcely inferior to 
that he had wielded as a minister. Feeling that 
the Whigs had sown what he had reaped, he sup¬ 
ported them as a duty, and not merely that they 
might carry out his policy. His last speech before 
the melancholy accident which terminated his 
career, was the sole exception to this policy : it 
resolved itself into an earnest but unwilling pro¬ 
test against the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston; 
and it gives occasion for the observation, that Sir 
Robert Peel’s opinions on foreign policy, though 
rarely expressed, were consistently in favour of 
non-intervention. 


XII. 

T R ' following notice of the oratory and par¬ 
liamentary demeanour of Sir Robert Peel is 
reprinted from former publications of the pre¬ 
sent writer:—- 

‘ Criticisms on Sir Robert Peel’s oratory, by 


AS AN ORATOR. 


93 


comparison with high standards, would be unfair. 
He has too much to accomplish by his speeches, 
to be able to make them perfect models. He 
cannot devote time to the pruning and polishing 
of his language as can Brougham or Sheil, pro¬ 
fessed orators. More formal than Brougham, he 
also wants his intellectual energy: less imaginative 
than Sheil, he achieves his conquests by appealing 
to the reason and not to the passions. His speeches 
would lose in effect what they gained in beauty. 
They are usually plain, and though occasionally on 
stilts, unambitious. He deals with opinions as 
Wellington did with troops—never advances any 
unfit for service. They stand their ground. He 
carries utilitarianism into oratory, looking more to 
present effect than future praise. Like all clever 
advocates, he reiterates his views, the better to 
impress them. This spoils the symmetry of his 
speeches. His style is correct, not elegant; elabo¬ 
rate, but not graceful. With great fluency of 
words he has little power over language. His 
sentences are long, often involved. He is verbose 
to a fault. You seldom meet with anything terse, 
pointed, or profound. Anti-climax is a common 
sin with him. He abounds in facts, and is such 
a master in argument (or what passes for such) 
that he can take up any side with equal effect. 
But his arguments are shallow in proportion to 
their ingenuity. They are raw recruits, enlisted at 
the moment; their defects are forgotten in the 
glory of victory. They have an affinity with the 
prejudices of the hearers; and hold good onI< v ~ 
long as the connexion lasts. They are vaJ 1 ^ 
not in themselves, but in what they effe^ 
are a crowd of witnesses to th ^ ’ u^t r 

he who uses them has for thos /e led 


94 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

by them. Each is an additional reason why he 
stands alone and has no friend. 

c His action is out of all rule. It is too stilted, or 
too familiar. Acting a part, of course he some¬ 
times overdoes it. The worst feature of his style is 
a studied affectation. He opens a great speech— 
as, for instance, in introducing the income-tax, or 
his currency plans—with a pompous pretension, an 
exaggerated solemnity, a half inaudible tone of 
breathless importance, that is itself almost a bur¬ 
lesque. At other times he condescends to an un¬ 
worthy levity. Though he but seldom perpetrates 
jokes, he usually chokes them in the utterance, by 
chuckling over them beforehand. There is great 
redundancy in his action. In the perpetual mo¬ 
bility of his person—now turning quite round to 
his supporters, and now leaning forward on the 
clerks' desk to speak to those opposite—you often 
lose the meaning of his words. His pet attitude, 
however, seems to be, to cross one leg over the 
other, and put one arm under the tails of his coat, 
while the elbow of the other rests upon the table 
—a very pleasant chatty way, but not quite in 
keeping with high oratory. Yet, if Sir Robert had 
spent time in conning perorations, rehearsing en¬ 
thusiasm, inventing impromptus, or studying grace¬ 
ful action in the artificial school, he would have 
missed acquiring the higher art of ruling men. 
The fame of a first-rate orator would never have 
satisfied Sir Robert Peel’s ambition, even if he 
could have attained it. He has played for a higher 
t *ke. He has solid power. His name is a talis- 
His mind has made itself felt among con- 
v, "'ies. Whatever his faults, he has elevated 
arc r House of Commons, by giving 
ive si^ x to its constitutional claims. 


HIS RANK AS A POLITICIAN. 


95 


In his respect of its decisions and observances he 
is almost puritanical. * * * * 

‘ If posterity should decide to rank Sir Robert 
Peel among great men, he will rather be classed 
among the statesmen than among the orators. He 
may be talked of with Walpole, but not with Pitt 
or Fox. Oratory is a severe and exacting art. Its 
object is not merely to excite the passions or sway 
the judgment, but also to produce models for the 
delight or admiration of mankind. It is a study 
which will not brook a divided attention. The 
orator speaks rarely—at long intervals—during 
which he saturates his mind with his subject, while 
casting it in the mould to which his taste guides 
him, as being the most calculated to enhance by its 
charm the intrinsic worth or beauty of his thoughts. 
Like the poet, he works either from love of his 
theme, or in the anticipation of triumph. But the 
exigencies of modern political warfare have called 
into being a class of public speakers, whose effusions 
fall as far short of those of the professional orator 
in permanent beauty, as they excel them in imme¬ 
diate utility. As the character of the House of 
Commons, remodelled under the Reform Bill, has 
become more business-like, so the most popular and 
powerful speakers there are those who, rejecting 
the beautiful, apply themselves to the practical. 
Eloquence has become a positive element of power. 
A party leader is compelled to enter with almost 
equal energy into the most trifling as into the most 
important affairs. He must be always ready with 
facts, with arguments, with simulatecfonthusiasm • 
he must identify himself with all trf ( interests 
those whom he could lead. Even / e therf 
for that preparation which a 2/ ' ora 
there is no scope for his display/? 


96 


THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


‘ At the head of this class of public speakers—of 
those who either do not aim at, or fall short of, 
acquiring the divine art which, harmonizing lan¬ 
guage till it becomes a music, and shaping thought 
into a talisman, gives a man the right to be called 
an orator—stands forth conspicuously Sir Robert 
Peel. We have already said that he sacrifices much 
possible fame as an orator, in order to secure sub¬ 
stantial influence as a statesman. Some may be 
prepared to combat this ; to say that Sir Robert 
Peels inherent mediocrity is such that he could not, 
if he would, have rivalled even the most distin¬ 
guished of living orators, much less the mighty 
dead. But it is difficult to suppose that a man of 
such high and such varied attainments, one in 
whom the scholastic fervour has survived amidst 
the uncongenial pursuits of a stormy political life— 
one who, as for instance in his speech at Glasgow, 
and in some few of his speeches in Parliament, or 
at public places, has breathed the purer atmosphere 
of poetry and philosophy—it is scarcely possible to 
believe that, had he early devoted himself to the 
study and imitation of the greatest models, to the 
perfection of style, to the discriminating choice of 
language, he could not have elevated himself as an 
orator of the highest rank. No, Sir Robert Peeks 
aim is different; his political weight depends on 
his power of charming or influencing the House 
of Commons. He has studied political opinion 
until even its minutest shades are made palpable 
to him. They are all more or less represented in 
he popular assembly, and there he displays his 
dedge of all their wants, and avails himself, 
'mg flis purpose, of all their rivalries and 
>T y\e but finds, from time to time, 
of Sir R. Peel. His caution, 


HIS PARLIAMENTARY INFLUENCE. 


97 


and, at the same time, his determination, are so 
well known, that the slightest hint he lets fall as to 
his purposes is instantly caught up. One cause of 
the breathless attention with which he is heard, is, 
that each section of the House is anxious to pene¬ 
trate the mystery of his future policy, knowing well 
that he will not utter any direct promise as a mere 
flourish, or unless he means to fulfil it. If he be 
oracular in his mystery, he is often equally so in 
his studied mystification. As no man can more 
clearly explain himself when he pleases, so no 
man can more adroitly wrap up his real mean¬ 
ing in an unintelligble involvement of words. 
Look at him while in power from 1841 to 1846, 
while still he was concealing his intentions with 
respect to the commercial policy of the country. 
Sometimes a sturdy Radical, or an indignant agri¬ 
culturist, determines to catch the eel by the tail 
and electrify him. He puts some plain direct 
question, and demands an answer. You think Sir 
Robert must now be fairly posed—his veil must be 
rent—parties must soon resume their own habits— 
for he must say something positive on which a war- 
cry can be raised. He rises, leans forward on the 
table, playing with his glasses, or puts his hands 
under the tails of his blue frock-coat, and in the 
most open and candid way declares liis determina¬ 
tion to answer frankly the question which has been 
put to him. This is satisfactory—it propitiates. 
All are on the qui vive. There is hushed silence. 
All heads are stretched forward in expectation of 
the announcement of policy. Perhaps Lord John 
Russell and Lord Palmerston exchange a glance or 
smile of incredulity, for they know their man. 
Meanwhile, the soft, bland voice has poured itself 
forth—its faintest tones heard in the most remote 


98 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

corner. The bearing bespeaks a full consciousness 
of the responsibility of the duty of the moment; 
the face wears the placid expression of innocence. 
You are fairly prepossessed for such a man. But 
what is he saying ? By that cheer from Mr. Cob- 
den and his Sanclio, Mr. Bright, he appears to 
have said something pleasant to the manufacturers. 
But that roar of delight from the other side ? Oh, 
he has convulsed the country gentlemen by some 
well-timed compliment to agriculture, not as yet 
the object of his ridicule. And now another cheer, 
more general, is the reward of some pompous maxim 
of the public good. It is clear the House has 
warmed to him. The more kindly they entertain, 
the more candid grows the speaker's tones, the 
more earnest is he to do the best which the state 
of things allows. An elaborate statement follows 
of the different courses open to him, of their several 
advantages and disadvantages, in all of which he 
adroitly rouses the prejudices slumbering for the 
moment around him, and establishes a sympathy 
with each, centering hopes in himself, and setting 
old hatreds anew against each other, until, having 
thus led the various parties into a mental melee, 
he winds up with an ‘ upon the whole' leading with 
IDonrpous affectation of resolves to a declaration of 
what he means to do, which, in fact, comprises— 
in an artful woof of phrases, sounding, but bodiless 
—almost everything that he does not mean to do. 
Meanwhile, he has skilfully diverted the attention 
of all from the real point at issue to their mutual 
jealousies and asperities. Ten to one he sits down 
‘amidst loud cheers,' having uttered much, but 
avowed nothing. It may be asked, c How can 
such a body be so transparently cajoled V The 
answer is, ‘ It is done—done every day, in almost 


HIS DIGNITY AS A MINISTER. 99 

every speech; and the more it is done the more 
they seem to like it/ 

‘ This, however, is hut one phase of Sir Robert's 
parliamentary character. There are two occasions 
—and they have multiplied during the last year or 
two—when he boldly throws aside all these arts of 
finesse , and assumes a much more lofty position. 
Patient, painstaking, a dissembler, even—politi¬ 
cally speaking—a hypocrite, in order to obtain 
power, he no sooner felt the sceptre firm in his 
grasp than his mind seemed to expand ; he grew 
in moral stature ; he disdained to look back at the 
tortuous path by which he had ascended, but 
pressed with proud confidence forward. A magical 
change came over Sir Robert Peel from the hour 
that he finally resolved to make the attempt to 
obtain a pure majority of the House of Commons, 
without the aid of the agricultural members—to 
be the minister, not of a party, but of the nation. 
Whether it was that the desperate nature of the 
game, and the magnitude of the stake (nothing less 
than the fealty of a party, and the reputation of a 
life), inspired an unwonted magnanimity, or that, a 
long-sought opportunity having arrived for throw¬ 
ing off a mask of hateful subserviency, Sir Robert 
Peel now for the first time displayed his real cha¬ 
racter ; assuredly there was in his speeches during 
the last two years, and especially the last six 
months of his official life, a tone to which his con¬ 
temporaries where wholly unaccustomed. With a 
sense of power, and a consciousness of self-sacrifice, 
he assumed the air, now of a dictator, now of a 
martyr. Defiance to the agriculturists, and threats 
to the legitimate opposition, were backed by a kind 
of covert appeal to the public out of doors: occa¬ 
sional flashes of spirit, rare but emphatic and 

G 2 


JOO THE LATE SIR ROBERT REEL, BART. 


decisive instances of plain speaking, induced a 
momentary doubt whether this man, so meta¬ 
morphosed by a great peril and an unparalleled 
responsibility, could hardly be the same Sir Robert 
Peel whose name had long been a bye-word for 
plausibility and slipperiness in statesmanship, whom 
you had so often seen shivering with ludicrous 
indecision on the very brink of a positive declara¬ 
tion. But it is a singular fact, illustrating the real 
character of Sir Robert Peel, that at every great 
crisis of his public life; on bringing in the Emanci¬ 
pation Bill ; on assuming office in 1834; and 
finally, on introducing the measure for repeal of 
the Corn-law, he has thus flung aside his disguise, 
and has spoken out plainly and boldly his real 
mind, regardless of personal consequences. This 
may have been magnanimity—it may have been 
moral hardihood : political passions will always 
usurp in such cases the decision of a calm judg¬ 
ment/ 


XIII. 

IN his private and social capacity, Sir Robert 
JL Peel embodied the qualities which Englishmen 
most respect and love. A pure and exalted mo¬ 
rality reigned supreme over all his conduct, seem¬ 
ingly over all his thoughts. It was the morality, 
not of convention, but of conviction. It had inter¬ 
fused his whole being from the earliest age; in¬ 
spired by the example and precept of his father, 
and fortified by constant contemplation of its 
ennobling influence on the human character, as 
exemplified in the lives of illustrious men. Justice, 
honesty, benevolence, w r ere the great rules of con¬ 
duct he inculcated on his contemporaries : the task 


HIS PRIVATE CHARACTER. 


101 


ol so doing cost him no labour, because such senti¬ 
ments were the fountains of his own mental and 
moral being. Reserved, seemingly cold even to 
austerity, in public, in his private relations he was 
the most kind, frank, and amiable of men, treating 
those who came in contact with him (without the 
right to equality of position) with a genial courtesy, 
that did not insult by affability and condescension. 
He was reserved only till he knew with what 
‘manner of man' he had to deal: once satisfied 
by observation on this head, all constraint vanished, 
and with it all sense on the part of his visitor that 
a long public career of honour and fame had cre¬ 
ated a difference of condition. 

In his domestic relations, Sir Robert Peel was 
the model of an English gentleman ; a tender hus¬ 
band ; a fond, yet judicious parent; as a landlord 
and an employer, commanding the love and respect 
of all who depended on him. He was not much 
given to convivial intercourse ; but when he did 
unbend, he gave the rein to his humour, and was 
the merriest of the merry. The writer enjoyed 
some opportunities of personally observing Sir 
Robert Peel, and was always strongly impressed by 
the readiness with which he could disembarrass his 
mind of the overwhelming weight of public affairs, 
entering into new subjects foreign to his ordinary 
occupations with a youthful freshness and avidity. 
Not less remarkable than his readiness was his 
willingness thus to busy his mind with such topics. 
A certain dignity of manner repelled intrusiveness ; 
so that if you were invited to converse, you felt 
assured that there existed some stronger motive 
than mere conventional courtesy. In fact, Sir 
Robert Peel was always gathering information,—it 
mattered not to him on what subjects, provided the 


102 . THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

medium was to be relied on. In the course of 
several long interviews with him, under circum¬ 
stances permitting much freedom of speech, the 
writer especially noticed the avidity with which 
Sir Robert Peel sought for facts, and the precision 
with which the relative or ultimate value of those 
facts was concentrated, as the conversation pro¬ 
ceeded, in aphoristic sentences, which again were 
brought to bear upon subsequent subjects with an 
algebraic simplicity. 

From such small indications of the working of 
this remarkable man’s mind, it was easy to calcu¬ 
late the processes by which he had amassed so vast 
a store of knowledge. Not that the writer had 
the slightest pretension to be able to add in any 
material way to that store, but that being relieved 
from the fear of occupying intrusively such va¬ 
luable time and being invited to converse, he 
spoke freely, and at the same time observed the 
effect of his statements or remarks on his auditor. 
Sir Robert Peel perfected every process of thought 
as he went on. If he could not digest or assimi¬ 
late a new fact, he did not permit it to remain in 
a crude state, disturbing his conclusions, bpt re¬ 
served it till he could associate it with others. 
Although tne character of his mind was intensely 
practical, it was not the vulgar practicality of a 
small soul, but was ennobled and elevated by libe¬ 
rality of sentiment; as Nature is minute and pre¬ 
cise in trifles, nor disdains the meanest agencies; 
because on the atoms depend the harmony and 
beauty of the whole creation. 

Sir Robert Peel was a steady patron of literature 
and the arts. Trading writers he despised, nor 
would he profit by their services or reward them ; 
but men of genius or of industry, and journalists 


AS PATRON OF LITERATURE AND ART. 103 


who were duly impressed with the moral responsi¬ 
bilities of their profession, received from him all 
that they ever desired—courteous respect, and a 
treatment consonant with their claims. The limited 
sum allowed by the niggardly commercial spirit of 
the English Commons for the aid of literary and. 
scientific men, was apportioned by Sir Robert Peel 
with justice and discrimination. Southey, James 
Montgomery, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Fraser Tytler, 
poor Hood's widow, M £ Culloch, Mrs. Somerville, 
Dr. Faraday, these were among those whom he 
selected as the recipients of the queen's scant funds ; 
and for others he found government situations. 
His private generosity was also great; but in this 
respect he of course did little more than do most 
distinguished men who are possessed of large for¬ 
tunes. 

As a patron of the arts, Sir Robert Peel is on all 
hands admitted to have been liberal, and disposed 
to encourage genius; although there will always be 
differences of opinion on the question of taste. The 
collection of paintings in Privy Gardens at least 
attested a thorough knowledge of the good in the 
Dutch and Flemish schools ; while that at Drayton 
was rich also in modern art. The writer remem¬ 
bers with pleasure having been conducted by 
Sir Robert Peel personally and alone through 
those galleries, when he had the best means of 
knowing that in respect of art he had at least a 
reason for the faith that was in him ; for his critical 
remarks indicated that thorough appreciation of the 
beauties of the several works and schools of art 
which can never be acquired by the mere purchas¬ 
ing and patronizing millionaire. 


104 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


XIY. 

S IR Robert Peel was not so much a moral and 
political phenomenon, as a necessity. In any 
age his talents would have commanded political power, 
but his distinctive character would have escaped 
attention, except at a peculiar crisis, such as that 
through which he was the means of conducting his 
country. Even as it was, had his mind been natu¬ 
rally of a stronger and more independent order, had 
his pride of judgment or his will predominated 
over his inquisitive and acquisitive faculties, had his 
capacity for receiving impressions from others been 
less marked than it was, the age would still have 
wanted the man whom happily it found. When 
he entered public life, the country had been little 
more than a century in the enjoyment of a reco¬ 
gnised constitutional system. Formally years before, 
public men, even of rank and influence, had begun 
to perceive, or at all events to teach the people, 
that this system was deceptive—that the represen¬ 
tative element was too confined in its action. Not 
many years before, the Duke of Richmond and 
several of the leaders of the Whig party had ac¬ 
tually propounded, in parliament and elsewhere, 
the right of the people to a representation almost, 
if not quite as democratic, as that at which the 
House of Commons has since derisively laughed 
when proposed by Mr. Feargus O’Connor as the 
People’s Charter. The younger Pitt, as has already 
been observed, was arrested in his attempts at a 
liberal policy, only by the necessity of concentrating 
the energies of the national mind on one sole and 
vital object. During the earlier part of Sir Robert 
Peel’s more youthful career, an agitation was car- 


HIS EARLY TORYISM QUALIFIED. 


105 


ried on for Catholic emancipation, for parlia¬ 
mentary reform, for what was called civil and 
religious liberty, quite as systematic as those 
which, in more recent years, have changed the 
political aspect of the country, the only difference 
being that such agitation was more confined to the 
parliamentary arena. The least prescient of poli¬ 
tical observers must have seen that, sooner or later, 
when the force derived by the government from 
resistance to Buonaparte had expended itself, these 
questions must occupy the public mind. Trading 
politicians saw this inevitable consequence; and it 
would be fair to suppose that the same conclusion 
forced itself upon a young and inquiring mind like 
that of Sir Robert Peel. Because he became so 
early and continued so long a member of a Tory 
government, the heated political passions of that 
day ascribed to him all the bigotry and prejudice 
presumed to be the indiscriminate characteristic of 
members of the Tory party. This was a fatality 
attending the late Sir Robert Peel throughout bis 
political life. It coloured unconsciously the opinions 
of even the most unprejudiced observers of his 
career. Because, by his talents and eloquence, he 
was always one of the foremost, and latterly the 
foremost man of his party, he was saddled with 
all the follies and extravagancies generated in 
the wide scope of an extensive political associa¬ 
tion; and this adverse influence pursued him even 
many years after he had boldly flung off such bur¬ 
dens, and impressed the peculiar characteristics of 
his mind upon the chiefs of the Tories and no small 
portion of their followers. Every young man who 
joins a great party, under however favourable aus¬ 
pices, must, to a certain extent, merge his own 
opinions, if then he has any, in the general policy 


106 THE LATE Sill ROBERT PEEL, BART. 

of his superiors; any moral evil implied by such 
conduct is fairly counterbalanced by united action 
and obedience to men whose position implies su¬ 
perior wisdom and knowledge of affairs. While in 
early life Sir Robert Peel continued a subordinate, 
and, so to speak, a servant of party, he spoke in 
that capacity strongly enough on party questions; 
but, if internal evidence may be believed, he never 
descended to be the mere partisan. You will search 
in vain in any of his early speeches for the habit of 
dogmatizing, the political and religious bigotry, and 
the contempt for public opinion, which were as¬ 
cribed to his associates. Even in party speeches, 
made as a member of the government, inquiry and 
analysis, and a permanent habit of balancing facts 
and arguments, may be found. It has been rightly 
said, that his mind was always in a course of de¬ 
velopment. When fettered by official restraints in 
early life, he always spoke with an evident impar¬ 
tiality on questions not involving duty to his party. 
If he avoided committing himself, even at this time, 
to positive declarations and opinions, his caution 
might as plausibly be ascribed to a doubt of his 
own judgment and a reverence for truth as to 
mere calculation. This supposition derives con¬ 
firmation from his perseverance in the same habit, 
when, having risen from the subordinate to the 
master, he took up grander ideas and expounded 
more important principles, indulging freely this 
spirit of impartiality on great political questions. 
If this arose in part from the greater freedom he 
enjoyed, surely it may also be ascribed in some 
measure to the development of his early spirit of 
impartiality. In acts he violently oscillated; in 
mind, never. If his party swayed to and fro, needs 
must that he went with them; but in time the 


HIS MODERATION. 107 

gravity of his own temperament reacted on his 
party and moderated their force. 

Moderation and a becoming modesty marked 
his opinions from the first. This, it is charitable to 
suppose, may have arisen from a natural diffidence 
in a young man forced so early into public life. It 
seems to have arisen, not from weakness or fear of 
grappling with difficulties, but from a spirit of in¬ 
quiry and investigation which settled into a habit. 
Later in life it was adopted from a conviction that 
it was the primary necessity in the education of a 
people who were rapidly advancing towards a prac¬ 
tical democracy. Among many services Sir Robert 
Peel rendered to his countrymen, not the least was 
his having infused into them this leading charac¬ 
teristic of his own mind. It had become the more 
necessary, after a long period of violent political 
conflict, in which the passions, so often mistaken 
for political principles, had grown to such rank 
luxuriance. As, during many years, an opinion 
was sedulously inculcated on the public, to the 
effect that Sir Robert Peel had been all along the 
violent and obstinate opponent of reform, except 
when he became its equally decided supporter, those 
who desire to form a true estimate of the man will 
do well to refer to the acknowledged records, and 
satisfy themselves as to what his opinions really 
were. Many popular fallacies and errors will be 
removed by this very simple process. 

In estimating Sir Robert Peeks character, this 
habitual, almost constitutional, moderation has been 
overlooked, even by the few who were not carried 
away by political passions, hut felt the true respon¬ 
sibility of judgment. Sir Robert Peel, having 
entered life and assumed official responsibility at 
so early an age, became of necessity an observer 


108 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


and a student. This character attached to his 
mind, even to the latest hour of his life. Had he 
been himself a slave of passion or prejudice, he 
could not have emancipated others from those 
fetters. He was always learning new lessons in 
statesmanship. He applied the inductive method 
alike to great things and to the insignificant. Facts 
were his authorities; facts the only persuasive in¬ 
fluence on his mind. First he had gradually to 
wean himself from the mental ties engendered by 
paternal precept and example, and by early party 
associations. That must have been a long and a 
difficult task, living, as he did, in such an atmo¬ 
sphere, and with the exigent realities of his official 
duty daily and hourly calling upon him to offer 
sacrifice to systems of government which he was 
already beginning to doubt. This opinion of the 
early condition of his mind is not a theory sug¬ 
gested by his later conduct, or a friendly regard for 
his reputation; it is founded on the evidence con¬ 
tained in his speeches. No other official person, 
even no other subordinate of party at that period 
—more especially of the party self-arrogating liber¬ 
alism—spoke or acted with more moderation, with 
more respect for justice, with a more significant 
desire to conciliate public opinion, than did this 
young statesman. His inconsistency loses much of 
its mark, is less abrupt in its transitions, the more 
microscopically we examine his opinions. His early 
youth was spent under circumstances unfavourable 
to the reputation of such a mind. Party feeling 
ran high on both sides. You were required to 
take your opinions, as the French electors take 
their candidates, by lists. However little you 
might relish A or B of those opinions, you must 
swallow it, or seem to do so, on pain of being cast 


HIS MENTAL INTEGRITY. 


J 09 


out as not thorough. A very young man, trained up 
in reverence for the old, constitutionally mistrust¬ 
ing the new, and, more than all, diffident of his 
own powers, might, naturally enough, have fallen 
into venial errors. It was evidence of a fine 
mental and moral organization that Sir Robert 
Peel came out of the trial so little tainted with 
misprision of treason to truth. Amid the turmoil 
of political strife, he arrived, by a mysterious pro- 
cess of growth, at the same results as if lie had 
been a philosopher in his closet. It has been 
remarked that Sir Robert Peel himself prepared 
and disciplined his army of facts, as the Duke of 
Wellington looked after the details of his troops. 
This is true. Sir Robert Peel was recruiting from 
his earliest official life. The test of common sense 
and practicability was his standard of measure¬ 
ment, and no new experience was permanently 
added to the number if it did not come up to the 
mark. Sir Robert Peel, even as a youth, seems to 
have anticipated the practical wisdom taught by 
age and experience. He seems to have early dis¬ 
covered, that in this world a man who is not a 
mere slave must have two characters, and live two 
lives—one for the world, the other for the inner 
self. Upon no other hypothesis can the unques¬ 
tioned integrity of Sir Robert Peel be reconciled 
with the imputations cast upon his joublic character. 
The difference between him and some others was, 
that he falsified the humorous dictum of Luther, 
that the human mind is like a drunken man on 
horseback, who, if you prop him up on one side, 
falls over on the other. Sir Robert Peel, even in 
his youth, never fell over on the other side. Never, 
either from false impressions, or to propitiate party, 
did he rush into extremes. He held his own, self 


110 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


sustained, with a clear spirit and a calm mind. 

‘ He was inconsistent;' ‘He changed his opinions;' 

‘ He flung over his party;' and so forth, These are 
the stereotyped charges. Say, rather, that he held 
his judicial faculty as a sacred trust; that conviction 
was with him, as with every wise and honourable 
man, a slow process; that he desired to arrive at 
political truth ; by which, in a free country, is to 
be understood, not theory alone, logically sustained, 
but that which is at once true and practicable. 
Till that union between the theory and the modus 
operandi is obtained—till, in short, public opinion 
marches more or less with private judgment— 
political truth has not become fit for legislative 
purposes. Sir Robert Peel saw this, as many 
others did ; but the difference between him and 
them was, that he saw the opportune moment and 
seized it. His own conviction usually lagged 
behind the logical development of new truths; but 
it was always a little in advance of their general 
acceptation by the people. This it was that made 
him so valuable as a moderator, or, if the term be 
not too ignoble, the political go-between. 

His mind marched with that of the public. The 
Liberals, in their avowed principles, were as much 
in advance of the average opinion of the nation as 
the Tories were in arrear. Sir Robert Peel's de¬ 
velopment kept pace with the development of 
national necessities. A policy of unqualified and 
obstinate resistance had generated a blind political 
antagonism, and a habit of reckless assault. Forces, 
rather than reason, were engaged in the struggle. 
At the era of the emancipation, the moral influence 
of public opinion, in its calmness and dignity, was 
not enough appreciated. Sir Robert Peel avowedly 
yielded the Catholic claims, not to conviction, but 


HIS DEFERENCE TO PUBLIC OPINION. Ill 


to necessity. He had all along opposed the 
Catholics, not as religionists, but as intractable 
subjects, who acknowledged a foreign allegiance, 
which made it difficult to govern them. One 
might even suppose that Sir Robert Peel contem¬ 
plated the possibility of a crisis such as the present 
day witnesses, where a measure of education in 
Ireland, of a healing and invigorating character, is 
threatened with frustration, because a foreign 
potentate forbids the Catholic clergy to assist it. 
But, in those days, it was a novelty for a statesman 
to arrive at, or at least to avow, a conviction at all, 
even of a necessity. The religion of party exacted 
a blind faith in fixed ideas, principles, and dogmas. 
To march with the people with averted eye and 
unwilling step, was then the only possible form of 
concession. It was Sir Robert Peeks merit to 
have foreseen this new path, and to have walked 
in it. But the change was not wholly abrupt. In 
the outcry raised on emancipation, his conduct on 
the Test Acts was forgotten. Yet what did he do? 
Although the minister of a government avowedly 
based on high-church principles, he refused to 
run counter to the House of Commons when that 
body, by a large majority, had affirmed the prin¬ 
ciple that the Test Acts should be repealed. To 
emphasize the principle thus adopted, he himself 
introduced a measure affirming the policy which 
he had opposed. What was this but an antetype 
of what he was to do on other and more vital 
occasions, when the advancing tide of public opinion 
threatened to break down the fixed ideas of ages ? 
From the temperate tone of his opposition to the 
measure, his choice of any ground rather than that 
of absolute exclusion cle jure, it was even then 
perceived that the time was not far distant when 



THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


the silent process of conviction would become fused 
with the administrative duty. Superficially, the 
inconsistency was as great as that which shortly 
followed on the Homan-catholic claims; but, 
analyzed, it no longer presented any moral defor¬ 
mity. Inconsistency with Sir Robert Peel was 
always accompanied by self-sacrifice,—the atone¬ 
ment was concurrent with the fault. When the 
next great crisis came, at the reform era, the 
sagacity of Sir Robert Peel, guided by his constitu¬ 
tional moderation, detected the error of the Whigs 
in stimulating, for party purposes, democracy in its 
unreasoning and dictatorial shape. He opposed, 
not so much the principle, as the measure of re¬ 
form ; and, when that opposition had proved un¬ 
availing, he taught his party, not merely to yield 
to a necessity, but also to adopt a policy. He 
became a Reformer, to the extent of the practicable. 
Adroit tactics, it is true, may be ascribed as the 
cause of this change ; but an impartial observation 
of Sir Robert Peel’s whole career suggests the pro¬ 
bability that it was conviction. On the former 
occasion, necessity had impelled ; now, conviction 
worked. Sir Robert Peel from this time forward 
rose above party, and therefore guided it all the 
more easily. His campaign as leader of the Con¬ 
servative opposition, displayed his mastery over 
parliamentary tactics, but not more than it did his 
resolve never again to become the slave of dictated 
opinions. His then speeches and conduct are a 
study. Not only free from dissimulation, he still 
contrived to centre the will and opinions of his 
party in himself. An egoist only because he pro¬ 
minently used an accepted parliamentary form, he 
might have been much more egoistical, and yet 
have been safe from ridicule. But during- the 

O 


HIS MORAL COURAGE. 


113 


wliole of this brilliant part of his career he was 
gradually and carefully infusing into the general 
mind of his party that respect for the opinions and 
wishes of the nation as a whole, which had grown 
to be the rule of his own mind. It was because, 
by contrast, the Tories had grown more liberal 
than even the Whigs themselves, that they were 
slowly but surely advancing to power. 

Moral courage was one of the great characteristics 
of the deceased statesman. You may call it ambi¬ 
tion, but you must, at least, admit that its farseeing 
faith in the justice of mankind raised it to a high 
intellectual and moral rank. The brief adminis¬ 
tration of 1834-35 first disclosed the true propor¬ 
tions of Sir Robert Peeks character. He had 
taught his party lessons in adversity,—he now 
sought to let the public know that a change had 
come over the Tory policy. That is the key to 
this otherwise Quixotic attempt of one man to 
withstand a majority of the House of Commous. 
He never meant to run counter to the House of 
Commons; all he desired was an opportunity to 
fix indelibly on the national mind the sense that 
the conservators of the constitution would also be 
the Reformers of its abuses. What grandeur there 
was in his position at that time ! ‘ Metamorphosed 

by a great peril and an unparalleled responsibility/ 
how gigantic grew the proportions of his character! 
There was a double daring. He was assuming the 
onus of a total change in the policy of his party, 
while at the same time seizing the victory from his 
opponents. Moderation had led to conviction, con¬ 
viction placed him in accord with public opinion. 
At each fall he rose from the earth more strong 
than ever. 

It was, however, in his last administration that 

H 


114 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


he showed himself a really great man. Emanci¬ 
pation and reform had been forced on the legisla¬ 
ture by democratic violence. The agitators for 
corn-law repeal had seized on some * cries' which 
threatened a repetition of the evil. A new deve¬ 
lopment of Sir Robert Peel’s character now startled 
the public. He had yielded to necessity, and then 
to conviction. He had grown to sympathize with 
public opinion,—he now aspired to guide it. He 
now betrayed the true foresight of the statesman. 
Cobden threatened to grow from a demagogue 
into a dictator. England could not afford an 
O’Connell. The integrity of the representation 
was threatened on the one hand ; there was the 
awful shadow of advancing famine on the other. 
Still the hour of absolute necessity had not arrived. 
Sir Robert Peel chose to anticipate it by an act of 
grace. 

The influence wielded by Sir Robert Peel over 
his contemporaries, and transmitted to his sur¬ 
vivors, was not confined to his having been the 
emancipator of the Catholics from the dominion of 
bigotry; of the Tory party from the thraldom of 
political dogma and prejudice ; or of the country at 
large from the repressing and contracting influence 
of the protective system. Nor, useful as have been 
his various practical reforms, and his improvements 
in the details of official administration, above all, 
important as was the change which he commenced 
in our system of taxation, were these his only 
claims. The action of his character embraced a 
wider range, and the results of upwards of forty 
years of public activity exhibit themselves in per¬ 
manent traits imprinted on the national mind. 
In his address, already quoted, on being inaugu¬ 
rated Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, we 


PREFERS APPLICATION TO ‘GENIUS/ 115 

have the key to Sir Robert Peeks character. Here 
we have explained the futility of that charge of me¬ 
diocrity so impertinently flung at Sir Robert Peel 
during the greater part of his life—in fact, until his 
grand self-assertion during his first brief Premier¬ 
ship. Sir Robert Peel put aside, we believe for ever, 
the antecedent school of flashy orators and romantic 
statesmen. If he formed his character on any 
model, it was that of Sir Robert Walpole. But we 
incline to think he rather trusted to the instincts 
and impulses of his own nature, which was, in all 
respects, pre-eminently practical. He was the 
incarnation of common sense. His mind was, 
from first to last, imbibing information, and pon¬ 
dering, not so much on abstract principles, as on 
practicabilities. He taught the House of Com¬ 
mons that habits of business were of more value 
than ad-captandum qualities in a legislator. He 
had taught this to his older contemporaries, by his 
assiduous and persevering example. He impressed 
it on the young men growing up around him, alike 
by a continued example, and by the moral weight 
of his precepts. Not the least of his sources of 
glory is that he should have trained up a band of 
young statesmen, all imbued with his general opi¬ 
nion of the true action of the British Constitution, 
and educated for practical statesmanship with a 
perfection which leaves them without rivals either in 
this country or elsewhere. His memory will live, not 
in his public acts alone, but by the spirit of mode¬ 
ration, and the love of safe and steady progress, 
which he instilled into the national character. He 
taught, from the highest position which a subject 
can occupy in the civilized world, lessons never to 
be forgotten by mankind; lessons of duty to the 
governing power, of obedience to the written law, 

H 2 


11G THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. 


and of respect for that public opinion out of which 
new laws spring. He taught, also, the duty of 
public faith-—faith as regards the pecuniary en¬ 
gagements of the country, the rights and privileges 
of established institutions, and of international 
engagements with foreign countries. His public 
errors, his sudden changes of policy, might be 
chargeable on the necessities of party combination. 
Whenever he sacrificed party ties, he also imperilled 
his own power, his well-earned reputation, and his 
private friendships. As soon as, from circum¬ 
stances, he became almost the dictator of his coun¬ 
try, the blemishes of his past career were obliterated 
in the effulgence of his intellectual power and his 
moral dignity. When he was a free agent, all his 
thoughts and all his actions were devoted to the 
welfare of the nation at large. Unlike many states¬ 
men of more brilliant and captivating qualities, 
his worth is not only appreciated immediately, but 
it promises to be held in still higher esteem as the 
lapse of time, and the effects of his policy, shall 
more and more diminish contemporary animosities, 
if, as in the opinion of many, the tendency of his 
policy has been to give a stimulus to democratic 
influences, and to offer a premium to agitation, it 
should be remembered that such a part as he has 
played is not likely ever to be played again— 
because such a period of transition can scarcely 
again occur. 

Fifteen or sixteen years ago, the name of Sir 
Bobert Peel was associated in the public mind 
with much that was affirmed to constitute a 
standing obstruction to the progress of society. 
Ten years after, there was no man in the country 
more popular than Sir Bobert Peel. Whatever 
respect might have been felt for his later rival in 
the possession of office by those who give that noble 


IIIS POLITICAL MISSION. 


J17 

lord credit for the best intentions, still the eyes of 
all classes of the community were turned to Sir 
Robert Peel, as the man who alone possessed the 
nerve, the prudence, the courage, the knowledge, 
to rescue us from then impending evils, and then 
existing difficulties—to repair the past, and con¬ 
solidate the future. This national faith and confi¬ 
dence continued, nay, it increased in intensity, after 
his retirement from office; yet, ostensibly, what 
public leader could have been more powerless in 
the autumn of 1846? He was displaced from his 
proper seat as leader of the opposition, which then 
was seized by one who had latterly been his ran¬ 
corous enemy. He had no personal following in 
the House, or, at least, so few individual supporters, 
as scarcely to deserve the name of a following. 
The chief members of his late government were 
all equally, to appearance, under a ban. His Home 
Secretary was driven to skulk in a corner on the 
back benches : all the other chiefs of his adminis¬ 
tration were scattered here and there without 
cohesion. In the House of Lords matters were 
superficially still worse for him. There, not even 
a semblance of old party ties was kept up; but the 
members of his government were driven from what 
would have been their natural places, which were 
ostentatiously filled by the protectionist, or country 
party. 

Still, Sir Robert Peel continued the centre of 
political attraction—the nucleus of future organi¬ 
zation. How was it that he held that proud posi¬ 
tion ? How was it that the nation looked on him 
as their great trustee ? How was it that he was 
morally and personally so powerful, while as a 
party man so powerless ? The answer is one which, 
for many a weary period, could not have been 
made in this country—free though our institutions 


118 THE LATE SIR ROBERT PEEL, BART. A 

rsi 

are. It is because Sir Robert Peel had the moral 
courage boldly to fling aside the trammels of party, 
and to rule for the benefit of the whole nation— 
not for that of the privileged few—that he became 
in so brief a period the most popular minister 
England ever had, and that his memory is so 
universally revered. It is because he then had no 
party that he could have formed the greatest party 
that could be organized in a free country—a party 
of which the constituent elements would have been 
the same as those which form the nation. He 
stood, during the three years prior to his untimely 
decease, in a position of proud isolation. He had 
offended party. He had dared to conquer party 
by the power of party. Therefore in the House 
of Commons he was not, strictly speaking, then so 
popular as he had been, although those who had 
been habituated to his sway, and the winning force 
of his persuasive eloquence, could not but bow to 
his commanding talents and sagacity. But with 
the nation it was otherwise. A sense of his services 
and sacrifices had sunk deeply. In his origin 
identified with the new sources of British pros¬ 
perity, he had grown with the growth of the 
people. His name was associated of late years 
with all the great triumphs of public opinion. As 
a commercial and financial minister, he inspired 
an unprecedented confidence. He had asserted 
the honesty of the British people. Despising 
imputations of sordid motives, he had dared 
to compel the country to return to the sound 
and safe ways. He was recognised as thoroughly 
English—English in the impartiality and upright¬ 
ness of his character, in his intense practicalness, 
his stern application of common-sense tests, his re¬ 
jection of the merely theoretical and romantic. If 
his way was tortuous, his goal was worthy. As a 


CONCLUSION. 


119 


publicist, lie excelled all contemporaries in the 
knowledge of facts and principles, in the habit of 
testing alternately the past by the present, and the 
present by the past; as a statesman, combining 
grandeur of plan with firmness and steadiness of ex¬ 
ecution ; as a party-leader, inspiring confidence in his 
guidance, and in the very conduct which precluded 
faith in his opinions; as a minister, developing the 
administrative faculty in a degree extraordinary 
even in an age of administrators; as an orator, if not 
brilliant or eloquent in the formal sense of the 
schools, yet always securing the end of all oratory 
—power over his audience; and, as a ruler of men, 
governing as free men can only be governed, 
through the pervading influence of general senti¬ 
ments, in which individual prejudices and interests 
were absorbed. He was the agent during a period 
of transition, making those changes natural and 
easy which, but for him, or such as him, would 
have been forced and violent. By self-sacrifice and 
the inspiration of his example, he averted civil 
contention:—precluded revolution, by precipitating 
reform. His was a great part in the world’s history; 
but one. which could only be played once. It im¬ 
plied many an agonizing struggle in the doubt 
whether time and events would shift from his 
character, the responsibilities imposed by contem¬ 
porary indignation. But, for all these inevitable 
pangs, Sir Robert Peel had the reward while he 
lived of a satisfied conscience, and at his death, the 
universal approval of his contemporaries, antici¬ 
pating with confidence the verdict of posterity. 


THE END- 



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